Against the Tide - A New Elysium Story [Complete]

5. Scraps, Bits and Pieces

"Well, in that case," he said and plopped down into the sand again with a sigh.

"Lars, what are you doing?"

"What am I doing? What are you doing?" he asked, looking up at her and gesturing at her body. "If this is the same place as last time, we'll be stuck here until we wake up anyway."

"But.... shouldn't we... I mean..." she turned around in a circle once, looking at their surroundings. There was just the beach, the ocean, and dense fog in every direction.

"Perhaps you're right," she realized. "If we go out into this fog, we might just get lost."

"Of course I'm right," he said, lying back down in the sand and crossing his arms behind his head. "After all, I'm the rational one here."

He smirked, and it was probably the strangest thing she had ever seen.

~ ~ ~

The Butcher leaned over another lamb.

"Interesting. Where did you find that one?" he asked, as he brushed a few strands of hair from the girl's face.

"On a derelict spaceship in the asteroid belt," one of the two men who had brought her in explained.

The butcher took her hands and turned them over, checking the palms and fingertips. To his trained eye, the interface implants were visible immediately, but they had been hidden very well. She might have spent the past years successfully hiding, but it would only have helped her to deceive humans, not the scandroids.

Besides, he could recognize a work of art when he saw one, and whoever had put those wires into her body had certainly created one – quite recently, that was for certain. The augments were high quality, arranged in meticulous order and wired to her neurons with nanometer precision, but they were mix-and-match. A clear sign for post-Purge surgery.

Patchwork, just like the girl herself, he noted, and combed his fingers through her hair. It was half white, half black, as was her suit.

What a strange one, he thought.

"Alright," he said to the two men. "Good job. Go pick up your reward and get back out there. We need more."

Once they had left the room, he bent over her again to take a closer look at her face. It was a beautiful face, and he wondered how old she was. She might have been quite young during the Purge, which would beg the question how she had survived it. Perhaps she hadn't been augmented at all back then. But that begged the next question of when, how, where and most importantly from whom she had gotten her hardware.

He caressed her arm, tracing his fingertips along the path of the wires that ran underneath her skin. It would be interesting to take this one apart. She was so pretty. Perhaps he could have some fun with whatever was left when he was finished.

But first there was the bothersome task of cutting her up. He already dreaded the mess it would make in his little laboratory. With those subcutaneous wires everywhere, and the augments in her head in particular, she wouldn't be very pretty any longer when he was done.

That thought in mind, he hesitated for another second, and then quickly looked to the door to assure himself that it was closed and he was alone, before he bent over her and pressed his lips against hers. It made him feel all giddy and excited, and for a moment he considered to go for some pleasure before business. But he couldn't be certain when the other promised delivery would come in. He would just have to be fast, so she'd still be warm at least.

With a deep sigh, he pried his eyes away from the girl to prepare his tools. But just as he was about to turn to his set of tools beside the work bench, something startled him and he froze.