Cire.

  She stared at the man who roag her from the side, abruptly haltiride, as was expected of a Paradise android while out and about her business.

  Robots were not allowed to hurt humans. However, that wasn't an excuse for humans to touch other people's property.

  What remained from that tradi when an individual absent ownership desired to ‘touch’ someone else's android could get somewhat vague, but at the very least, one could expect peacekeepers to deal with the mist, assuming the bot’s owner could pay for it.

  The man paused at her warning, scruffy face, a patchwork of uneven beard, and the occasional scar. His short hair, clipped at the ears, was greasy like Warren’s, but of a paler shading, more blond.

  ingly, the man carried a somewhat familiar baton, switch activated, the pitched whine heralding its limited batteries already draining…

  He stood there, halfway stuck between ag out on his impulsive thoughts and halfway eager for what he doubtless saw as a 'good time' or possibly just some valuable scrap. Either way, he jolted when another of his ‘gang’ called out, ughing at him like he was an idiot.

  “Ay, lookie at Dougie! Fucker’s gon ‘imself spttered! Dibs on his shit!”

  “Eh, that’s just an urban legend!” ‘Doug’ called back, the short and squirrely-looking man rolling his shoulders and gng back at Cire. “You think Paradise would let their bots kill humans? Gov’ment would shut 'em down in a heartbeat. Nah, that’s just something the corps like to hiss 'bout to try to prevent ho, hard-w folk from getting a little extra scratch!”

  “Anyone want to put money on if she kills ‘im?” Another man joked, more and more reprobates emerging from the gloom of the dipidated building as a sizable force verged on her person.

  “She ain't gonna do nothing to me! And Roy, if you touch my shit, I’ll slit ya in your sleep!”

  “Nah, mate, you’ll be little bitty ks on the road!”

  “Dolls don't kill people…” A woman grunted, moving out to join the man who was already halfway to her.

  “Ay! This ‘un here’s mine! Fuck off, I saw her first!”

  “I’ll fight ya for her.”

  “I’m not fighting anyone for what’s already mine!”

  “Then I’ll take her from ya!” The girl ughed, swinging around a rge polished club that looked a lot like a baseball bat but was, in faearly twice its size.

  The girl was a bit of a meical monster… Cyberic arms, cyberic legs… what looked like long syic hair impnts, if only because they weren't gross and messy, more a kind of neon and gold gradient that glowed at her highlights…

  “Hey, what makes you two think that either of ya get the Doll?” Another savage asked, more and more men and women speaking up as the group began edging forward, none seeming to like the idea of losing out on a potential payday.

  This was the first time that Cire had, in memory, actually e here. And now she could see why Paradise charged so much extra for a call out to this particur part of the city.

  It was a shithole!

  The smell of hot garbage, excrement, poor air quality, and the nonstop hammer and sm of distant industry all bio create a miserable armpit that was—so much worse thahought!

  There were as many run-down buildings as active ohe shops were either guarded by armed meraries angs, and for every crappy apartment she saw, there were two more that somehow looked far worse!

  Yet, as much as Cire found the idea of getting accosted sort of iing in a ‘first time’ sort of way, she quickly hacked the goril-woman’s arm and promptly pummeled the nearby man in the face.

  His skull, soft and horribly biological as it was, fractured as it ched in on itself, nose popping like a grape uhe weight of reinforced steel and posite, sending the sy man backward in a single ical flip.

  “The fuck, Beckie?”

  “I—I didn't do that!” The woman shouted, just as fused as everyone else! Yet when someone rao go help the very much dead scrap thief, she just had ‘Beckie’ punch out again!

  Cire wao ugh as the woman scored herself another solid knockout! Her fist tag another ium before it lurched out again, grabbing the lolling bandit by the scruff of his neck as Cire got creative!

  Using the other woman’s meization against her, she forced the girl to toss her own rade into the mass of others nearby! Truly creating an amusing bit of chaos as they all tumbled over each other.

  Oh, silly, silly savages. Why was it so fun to mess with them?

  What followed, however, was something that Cire holy hadn't expected to see.

  Rather than bming Beckie, several of those knocked down from the flying body began shouting and hitting their already potentially dead rade! Angry at him for flying into them all…

  What the man could have possibly doo prevent that, well that seemed rather unimportant to those who were already kig his body like he owed them money...

  Maybe he just wasn't well-liked...

  And when Cire forced the robo-goril to charge into her patriots, knog even more of them aside like some rampaging bull, her ie screams e and fusion merely ed fires of passion and old grudges as the entire group turned on each other in a sudden brawl!

  Cire saw two people have their heads kogether with a siing ch by a big bastard who looked to have some expensive and subtle upgrades. Only for said brute to be tackled by three others, stun-batons in hand, before they collectively shocked the ever-loving shit out of him!

  Ha! He even pissed his pants!

  Another woman delivered a flying kick to a rather androgynous individual who was busy trying to strip something from a body on the ground; all the while, the person being ‘looted’ was in a wrestling match with another man who had bdes whipping about his arms, sort of like a weird and iive blender…

  Cire simply watched it all with amused delight as things really got iing!

  The alleyway became an amateur ballet of violence, as much as a scuffle filled with insults as it was! All of it, in a strange way, beautiful with the chaotic pageantry that emerged.

  A woman with razor-sharp cws extending from her fiips sshed at a man's face, leaving bloody furrows across his cheek and exposing bone and steel beh!

  He roared in pain aaliated with an off-banced kick, augmented by pic pistons, that sent her crashing into a stack of rusted metal sheets, and him ung sideways with a broken knee!

  The impact, at least from the woman with upgraded ‘secretary cws,’ crumpled the metal like paper, trapping her beh the debris in a cascade of falling rust.

  A hulking brute with a cyberic arm ripped a metal pipe from the wall and swung it like it was the legendary sword from the stoself, eg with a smaller man's ribs with a siing and cheer-indug crabsp;

  The man wheezed and quickly took a ko the ground, gasping for air, his meical chest partially caved in as he held up his hands as if begging for mercy. The brute grinned, a fsh of metal teeth glinting in the light, his middle finger bared as he booted the mahen turned his attention to aarget.

  Two more figures grappled on the ground as the big guy stomped off, their augmented limbs a blur of motion. One, a kind of too-thin and spindly woman with enhanced reflexes, dodged a punch aimed at her head and tered with a lightning-fast jab to her oppo's throat.

  He choked, his eyes bulging, as she nded several more in ruthlessly quick succession, actually denting the poor cartige in his neck before she extended a bde from her arm for a proper and brutal finish!

  Sadly, before she could end him, she was ko the side as a body was flung through the air, tangling the woman in a knot of limbs while her victim spasmed on the ground, suffog as he choked towards a lonely and cold death...

  A maried to sneak off with her through all the mayhem and age! And, with a grafted-on chameleon skin, his body shimmering with shifting colors, he made his bid for her while partially bending the light around him, sneaking from the side, but it wasn't to be.

  Cire easily tracked his movements, the robotisors of her eyes not nearly as primitive as a normal human's, let alohat she was 'ihe head of everyone here, or, at least, those with brain augments.

  She took trol of his interected nervous system, a rather intricate and expe of cyberware, sending a fun little jolt of electricity through his body that made him spasm untrolbly, his camoufge failing as his skin fshed a blinding and flickering white!

  He seemed almost shocked as he stumbled to the side, eyes fighting the disorientation before Cire called in ‘The Beckie,’ hissing and screaming as she was, to give him a sweet, sweet knuckle-to-face ‘kiss’ goodnight.

  The air filled with the stench of siss, and burnt flesh. The screams of the injured mingling with the ctter of metal oal, creating an orchestra of a well-deserved ‘lesson’ that echoed against the tall buildings all around them.

  But even as she reveled in the mayhem, a part of her remained detached, an observer watg the bitter struggle of animals driven by passion with a sort of heated excitement that warmed her syic cheeks and caused her to bite her lip.

  Whew! Maybe there was a lot more to all this violence busihan Cire had first thought! This was so—exg!

  So visceral!

  So random and fast-paced and messy to the point she could hardly anticipate what might happe!

  Thrilling in a way that genuinely enpassed what she was beginning to love about the monkeys! So primal and unhinged! So driven by nonsense aional grievahat she almost wao go grab a on a herself stu!

  B-but, bathing in the blood of humans was a—questionable desire that she held off on for the time being… Ugh, stupid primates got to have all the fun now, didn't they?

  A good thing that most of these people had some serious hardware, as, despite the violehere were really only one or two deaths thus far.

  Blood, syic oil, and sparkironics began emerging in ever greater quantity, with Cire occasionally notig a good opportunity, too hard to pass up, to take somebody’s impnt over and deliver a solid knockout amidst the havoc that had several bystanders wandering over to watch.

  Sadly, while this had been fun, Cire merely began walking off ohe ‘crowd’ started getting bigger. No point in drawing attention to herself, after all!

  Leaving the gang to settle their differences and old scores, the ‘old school way’ (through extreme violence), Cire moved right along to her choseination.

  As it happened, only certain areas in Port Pride were actively protected by the peacekeepers, and it was generally easy to know where that was.

  Anyone who could pay for the service or looked like they could pay could generally be assumed to have their prote. And, almost certainly, those locales did not at all include shitty alleyways filled with thugs.

  Yet, as she began striding away, amused but no longer ied, the AI had a suddehat immediately gave her pause.

  If she was looking for someone shady to deal with, what better people to introduce her to the right business parthan those who were already shady?

  Gunther.

  An old and weary man sat behind a ter, burner between his lips, the occasional plume of cherry-sted vapor releasing into the air, intermixing with oil, polymer, and burning circuitry.

  To his left was a quickly cooling mug of coffee, its chipped rim only slightly less impressive thaime-wor boss ever’ logo sitting on its side.

  In truth, he’d bought the mug himself, and for more years than most would care to think about, Gunther had pced his mug right front aer, fully on dispy for any who might choose to wander into his shop.

  Holy, the damhing might have been with him lohan his oldest employee, yet, ‘employees’ were a dime a dozen, and if they weren't calling him and expining why they weren't ing in for the day, they were in the back, more often than not fug something up.

  Of course, Gunther would have to, invariably, go back there himself to see how bad the damage was for any given 'act,' but that was just par for the course, and he’d since worked such hiccups into his cost besides.

  No, Gunther was a ‘man’ of the unity. And as such, he gave the street scraps that called themselves 'locals' an ear and genuine ce for some ear and genuine work.

  Still, three strikes, then you were out.

  If you couldn't figure out the differeween a tord a pair of pliers by that point, you had no business w with your hands. But, if you did alright, came to work on time, and actually picked up a talent or two for scrap, Gunther would punt yht up the , sending his most talented workers to a real apprenticeship in exge fenerous finder’s fee.

  Labor was cheap, but people who knew what was what were harder and harder to find. It meant that he had quite a substantial turnover rate but that he could also generally track when the people worth anything were ing and going.

  It made things easy, it made things anized. And though people liked to call Gunther a cheap prick or thieving she thing was that they all still came to his shop because his prices were cheap, just as the wages he offered were low.

  Eh, there was an art form to making credits. And sure, some of the ‘fancier’ shops charged two to four times what he did, but they also dealt with parts that weren't quite as long-lived as his own.

  The abrupt cmor of a little eleikey, one of the ds had rigged up as a prank, stealing his old door-bell so they might force the ‘old man’ to listen to smming cymbals, rang out as the door opened, and Gunther peered from his tablet.

  News seemed to have a tendency to air on the side of the miserable these days, so he was early pleased for the distra. Yet, as he bli the beaten, bruised, and bloody mutt that had just dragged herself inside, Gunther couldn't help but smile and whistle!

  “Rebecca… Ahah! You look like shite, girl. The fuck happened? ‘Ya get in a scrap with the ds from Baker’s Row again?”

  “Nnnnn-no…” The woman replied, words stretg out as though she were straining just to speak, her head twitg at erratitervals, even as her limbs stomped her forward, hips leaning back as though she were trying to pull herself away…

  “You… alright, ss?” Gunther asked, expression dropping right into a frown as his hand reached down for the emp he kept right under his ter, finger caressing the button while watg the rge woman wearily…

  “Stop—fug—fuck! Stop already! I’ll do it! Fuck, just quit it, will you?”

  All at ohe womaire body rexed, the girl Gunther had known since she was but a small runt ner than his damned kaking a deep and shuddering breath…

  “God—fuck!”

  “Rebecca?”

  “Just—chill out, will you, Gunny? Fuck’s sake, everyone just o give me a goddamn minute!”

  There was sileer that. The tension practically vibrated on a string as Gunther’s fiwitched, nearly activating his security, but he felt his own ay lessening as the young ulled out a burner of her own and then started huffing ba the thing as if she'd just rolled off some asshole after sweaty hate-sex.

  Holy, it looked like she’d gohrough an industrial wash-cycle with a drum filled with razors and hammers, but after a few moments, she seemed to calm to a manageable state.

  “Alright! Gunny, I need you to do me a big favor!” She announced, face disappearing in a plume of colored mist as she stared at him, eyes hard as they were pleading.

  Slowly, Gunther nodded his head. He wasn't about to agree to anything, but it wasn't like he couldn't hear the girl out.

  Rebecca was a good enough sort. Not the brightest girl around aainly not great with her hands, but so far as those that so often stumbled into gangs went, she was one of the far less violent ones when it came to b good and ho folk.

  If anything, the young ruffians who liked to think themselves 'hard' men and women could even be said to be a sort of soothing presehey rarely took from those they’d grown up around and always seemed eager to butt heads with others who weren't so judicial.

  Still… Gunther sidered the girl for several more moments, not terribly sure what was going on as the ss seemed a touch cracked, but what did it really cost him to listen?

  So, taking another sip from his coffee, he gru the woman, as nonital as he could be.