Chương 79: 10. Rusters

They rode in silence for a few minutes, and Hector saw apartment stacks take shape through the haze. They weren't the biggest megastructures he'd seen, not by a long shot, but they were still large—rectangles of blue-gray plasteel, twice as tall and wide as the towers back toward the city center. He could see solar-active lettering on the nearest two: HS11 and HS7. Looking at Lemon, he asked, " HS?"

"Housing Structure." When he just nodded and zoned out again, she asked, "You're not going to tell me what's going on with you? Why'd you want me to look up that little history lesson?" Hector didn't answer, and before Lemon could push the matter further, the train began to slow, and the pleasant voice announced, "District Seven Station approaching. Please brace for deceleration."

As the brakes hit, Lemon leaned into him, and for a second, as the warmth of another body tickled some instincts in his primal brain, he almost forgot who he was. He almost enjoyed the moment. Then the train stopped, a chime sounded, and the doors opened.

"Come on!" Lemon jumped up and pushed through the light crowd to the doors. The platform wasn't nearly as crowded as the one back in the city center. Lemon led the way to the stairs, and Hector followed her down to the street. For the first time, he saw vehicles other than trains. Cargo trucks maneuvered the narrow lanes for the most part, but there were smaller personal vehicles humming past as well.

"Why no cars back in the city center?"

"No streets!" She laughed, shaking her head like he was being funny.

"There are cars, though—tunnels stretch out to some districts. They park down there in the roots." Hector nodded, following her down the wide sidewalk toward the stack labeled HS7. It was maybe a mile ahead, blotting out most of the skyline.

"So, you're really okay?"

"Yeah. It passed."

"Why's your system messing with you?"

"I applied some potentia."

"Really? Will it make you younger? They told me that was the main ingredient when I got a treatment." When he didn't bite, she added, "Saved for five years to take off ten." She smiled brightly.

"What do you think?" He inclined his head.

"Good investment."

"I'm already a quarter of the way toward my next treatment, too. Might actually get ahead and save up for a vacation."

"But your rent?" She sighed.

"Some bad choices at a club party last week. I could go into my savings, but I made a promise to myself." Hector watched a large truck with three massive tanks on its bed roll by. They were labeled with explosive warnings, and he marveled at that—the fragility of everything.

"So will it?" He looked at Lemon, running their conversation through his head to see what he'd missed. After a second, he found it.

"Make me younger?" She nodded, arching an eyebrow. He wasn't in the mood to describe how gaining levels in his aura system would allow his skin to improve in, effectively, every way imaginable—from strength to speed to more powerful aura abilities.

"No."

"But it makes you sick?"

"Just while it's processing the potentia." His tight diction might have given the hint that he was tired of talking, because Lemon looked back toward the stack and lengthened her strides. They passed a large group of teens, many of whom called out to her—nothing overtly lewd, but quite a few invitations for drinks, walks, and "hanging in the pod." Perhaps it was the smoldering anger lurking in the depths of Hector's eyes that kept their advances from straying into verbal assault.

The stack filled nine city blocks, and nearby were some dedicated outdoor areas—concrete picnic tables and four ball courts with no goals and graffiti instead of boundary lines. Not a single kid was out on the courts, but then, for all Hector knew, they were in school. The thought piqued his curiosity, and he asked, "Kids in school?" Lemon nodded.

"Imperial Civic School. One of the few things the PKs seem to care about. I think the stacks have schools on multiple levels." She nodded toward a looming figure at the top of the steps before the stack's front entrance.

"Speak of the devil." Hector looked up to see his first Heliopolis Peacekeeper. He quickly looked down, not wanting to have his retinas scanned. He had no idea if his new skin had any sort of record or if he was even supposed to be on Mars, so he figured it best to keep a low profile until he'd done a little research… or changed his eyes out. The peacekeeper wasn't tall, but he was physically imposing—broad shoulders, heavy, scuffed ballistic armor on his torso, and a dark helmet with a matte-black visor.

His gear was marked with unit insignias, such as his rank designation, and personal markings like a row of skulls and blocky white letters that read, "STAND BACK." Hector could feel the peacekeeper's scrutiny, but he kept his chin ducked and walked quickly beside Lemon through the yawning hangar-style doors that led into the apartment block's ground-level courtyard. It felt like the temperature dropped a dozen degrees when the peacekeeper's visor turned back toward the street.

Hector looked up, taking in the scene inside the courtyard. The high walls of the stack stretched up, adorned with open-air concourses that were obscured by advertising panels, no doubt installed after construction to defray costs. The end result was vertical walls of holograms and flashing crystal-glass screens that displayed all manner of products. Whether the ads were for shoes or guns or cybernetic prostheses, it seemed the old adage still held true: sex sells.

Hector stopped in his tracks, his neck craned like a tourist as he looked up on all sides. He'd been struck by the thought of what it would be like to grow up in a place like that. The pittance of sunlight that trickled down from the tiny gray-blue square of sky couldn't compete with all those LEDs and photocells.

"Level 121," Lemon said, gesturing toward the nearest bank of elevators. Hector grunted and followed behind. The elevators were metal cages mounted against the open courtyard wall. As Lemon handled the control panel of one, he moved to the back and looked out, watching the hive-like interior as they were carried up into the heart of the stack. Each level was open to the courtyard—at least in the gaps between advertisement panels—and he could see the people moving to and fro down long, dimly lit corridors.

The walls of the levels they passed were all painted a different color with an accompanying pattern—red with white circles, blue with green squares, yellow with black stripes, and so on. He supposed it was a way to give the people on those levels a way to build a shared identity. Most of them were painted over with graffiti and murals, though. In those murals he saw angels and demons, heroic figures standing against peacekeepers, and other such iconography.

When the elevator stopped and the door rattled open, Lemon started to step out, but Hector grabbed her arm, stopping her short. He'd seen something—a flicker of shadow out of the corner of his eye—and that, accompanied by a low, deep chuckle from the other side of the hallway, had triggered some innate sense of caution. The doors started to slide closed, but he put his hand between them and they slid open.

"What—" Lemon asked, but Hector met her eye and shook his head. He cautiously peered out to the left, looking for the shadow he'd seen. A hulking figure stood there—more metal than man, with exposed wire, mixed-alloy plates, and grease-stained circuitry covering most of his body. Hector barely had time to register the guy before a heavy hand fell on his shoulder and yanked him out the door.

He felt the strength in that grip and knew better than to plant his feet and resist; all he'd accomplish would be to set himself up to be blindsided by the big scrap-rat. Instead, he went with the pull, taking in the situation as he moved. It was another ruster who gripped his shoulder—jagged wire fingers whirring and clicking as their little servos strained. The man was tall and thin, his face more alloy than flesh. His black lips parted, exposing teeth filed sharp and electrum-plated.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Hector had seen enough. If their appearance weren't enough, the man's grip on his shoulder sealed the deal. Faster than most aura users could begin to open their pathways, he fired off his strength boost—just three aura, as his new skin seemed to handle that amount just fine. The aura propagated through his cells, and the hallway brightened, the shadows falling away as his body erupted with a flickering red glow.

The ruster's eyes widened, and he frantically swiped his other hand at Hector's face—long, hooked, metal digits looking to peel the flesh from his skull. Hector's heart hammered, his muscles swelled, and he drove with his legs, twisting his hips as he delivered a brutal right hook to the ruster's polymer chest plate.

The movement took him under the ruster's swipe and the punch made any further attack unlikely; the polymer—no doubt installed for easy access to cybernetic organs that required regular maintenance—crumpled under the pressure of the blow, bowing in and transferring the impact directly to said organs. Things cracked under Hector's knuckles, fluids sprayed out the seams of the cyborg's torso, and he collapsed, seizing violently.

Meanwhile, Lemon screamed, and Hector leaped to his left, using his momentum to whirl, rotating on his left leg, as he delivered a roundhouse with the right, smashing his foot and shin into the big scrap-rat's ribs. Hector didn't have eyes in the back of his head and he didn't have any kind of second-sight; he'd just been in a thousand fights and knew that was where the guy would be.

His strength boost was still active, and that kick would've probably killed the guy if his ribs hadn't been made of something far too damn hard. Hector felt something pop in his foot, and almost instantly, his boot felt too tight. The kick might not have killed the guy, but the force had been good enough to drive him off balance, and Hector was adept at ignoring pain. He bent his knees and leaped, launching his lithe, muscular body onto the barrel-chested scrap-rat's back.

As the would-be mugger stumbled precariously toward the railing and the thousand-foot drop to the concrete below, Hector wrapped an arm around his head as he scraped his fingers along the plasteel neck-plates at his throat. Plasteel was a wonderful material for all sorts of applications. It could be molded into any shape imaginable; it was corrosion-proof; it was flexible; but it was also easy to rip out of its housing when it was a fraction of a millimeter thick.

Even without his strength boost, Hector could have taken that plasteel off. With his boost still firing, though, his fingers dug through, hooked around some tubes and wires, and then yanked everything out in a spray of sparks and blood. The scrap rat fell to his knees, and Hector stood, watching as he slowly collapsed, a large, dark puddle forming on the concrete. He turned to see Lemon standing in the elevator, holding the door open with one hand while she stared at Hector with wide eyes.

"What the hell?" she gasped.

"Just a minute." Hector squatted beside the big mugger, put his palm on his back and felt his aura system trigger, collecting the potentia that was stirring in the soon-to-be-corpse. //3 potentia gathered. Potentia available: 9. // Exhaling slowly, trying to calm his racing heart, Hector limped over to the other body. As he leaned over, he noted many faces peering out of doors, watching with spooked eyes as he put his hand on the guy's oozing chest. He felt the hot rush of potentia, but it was brief.

//2 potentia gathered. Potentia available: 11. //"What are you doing?"

"Potentia," Hector said, standing. His foot hurt, but it wasn't terrible.

"I can't believe those assholes attacked—" Lemon's words died on her tongue as she saw something that had her backpedaling toward the elevator. Hector followed her gaze down the concourse to where two more scrap-rats were approaching, perhaps thirty meters distant. One of them held a metal bar that crackled with static electricity, and the other had a hooked, mechanical arm that looked like it could probably rip scrap metal from old junkers.

Hector grunted, glancing the other way to be sure there weren't more coming.

"We should go," Lemon said, hurrying back into the elevator. Hector frowned, stepping close so he could stop the door from closing.

"Why?"

"W-why? You saw—""We have a job. Think maybe these guys have something to do with the girl?" Before she could answer, an amplified, grating voice called out, "Best step off, fool. Got lucky once, won't happen twice." Hector arched his eyebrow at Lemon. She shook her head.

"Let's go!" He shrugged.

"You go if you want." Then he turned and checked his aura status: //Aura Pool: 7/8 End Report//.

"Beautiful." He stalked toward the two men. Rusters, scrap-rats—they were derogatory terms he'd picked up in the Guard. The words were meant for men like these who used scavenged cybernetics, stolen from morgues and graves, or crafted in back alleys. They were never clean, never fully functional, but they got by, cheating death or old age with mechanical organs, chemical infusions, and dodgy transplants.

Half of them did it out of necessity, but most of them fell down the slippery slope of one implant requiring two more, which, in turn, required another, and so on.

"This is our level now, kid."

"Boss, look at Bibi and Ham." Hector had stopped beside the big guy whose throat he'd ripped out, and he glanced at the corpse while the other two approached.

"This your whole crew?" The guy with the huge mechanical arm—something that would have been more at home on a construction exoskeleton—stepped ahead of the other, younger scrap-rat, approaching Hector directly." I'm the whole crew, meat-skin." Hector arched an eyebrow. He hadn't heard that one, but he supposed it was meant to be an insult about his lack of cybernetics. The big guy continued to approach, and his arm whirred as he lifted it high, poising the hook for a downward attack.

It was obvious and clumsy, but he saw why the guy thought he could get away with it. His legs, mostly covered by canvas overalls, were exposed at the hips, and Hector could see enormous gearboxes there; the guy was a walking tractor.

He'd stood beside the large corpse for a reason: it made it tricky for them to approach him together. The fact didn't seem to bother tractor-man, though; his heavy steps clonked on the concrete as he drove forward, and his metal jaw clenched in a very emotive show of anger. Hector bent his knees and loosened his back, lifting his fists.

"Come on, then." He expected his confidence to fuel the ruster's anger, and it did. Tractor-man took two long strides, his gears whirring and creaking, and then he drove that long, rust-colored hook down with all his weight behind it. It was a terrible blow; it would've torn through a sedan, let alone a human. If Hector had been foolish enough to take it head on—even with a strength boost—he might have caught and stopped it, but his body would have suffered.

He could imagine tendons tearing, bones snapping, or discs rupturing in his spine. As the hook whooshed down, though, he fired another strength boost, then he simply… stepped back. The hook pounded into the concrete, tearing loose a sizeable chunk and sending particles flying from the impact point. Hector stepped forward and smashed his heel into Tractor-man's mechanical shoulder. He aimed for the piston housing he saw there, and he felt the metal bend under the blow.

More importantly, the power of the impact on the already forward-leaning ruster knocked him off balance, and he toppled face first into the pool of ruster blood. With the mechanized man prostrate before him, Hector's killer instincts took over, and he delivered another heel shot to the back of his neck. He wasn't a giant of a man, but he wasn't small, and his body was awash with an angry red aura, his muscles swollen and powerful.

The impact, delivered with the precision found only through countless hours of rigorous repetition, was enough to pop the big man's off-switch." Tom?" the last of the rusters wailed, eyes wide as he saw his downed role model." Well?" Hector growled. The ruster dropped his buzzing stun-baton, turned and ran. He didn't make it to the far end of the concourse, though; people had come out of their apartments, and a mob had begun to gather. When they saw the ruster running, it was like blood in the water.

The crowd closed in on him, and Hector watched as they dragged him down, kicking him until he grew still.

"Hector, I don't like this," Lemon said, her voice shaky as she grabbed onto his sleeve. He turned to regard her, noting the residents approaching from the other direction.

"They're not mad at us." He nodded toward the mob still beating the downed ruster.

"These thugs were terrorizing them." He squatted and put his hand on the big, hook-armed scrap-rat, sucking air through his teeth as the rush hit him. //4 potentia gathered. Potentia available: 15. //"What does that do for you?" she asked, apparently unclear on the whole potentia-gathering process.

"Later. Check for bit-lockers," he said, picking up the kid's homemade baton and tossing it over the railing. He didn't want one of the people in the mob to pick it up and get any ideas, nor did he want to try carrying it out past the peacekeeper. As the crowd drifted their way, he nodded toward one of the side corridors leading away from the courtyard.

"See the numbers?" Lemon was leaning over the first guy Hector had taken out, but she stood, slipping something small into her pocket. She hurried over to him, darting furtive glances toward the congregating residents.

"What?" Hector pointed to the numbers on the corner of the interior corridor. Lemon nodded.

"Yeah. That'll lead to her apartment."

"I'll follow you." Licking her lips, she hurried to the corner, smiling nervously at an older woman who stood there. When Hector passed by, the lady reached out and touched his arm.

"Thank you. Waited too long for them to try the wrong person." Hector just grunted, but Lemon heard the woman, and she paused, turning to ask, "Why not call the peacekeepers?"

"Hah, girl. We tried. Those bangers would just hide, and the PKs didn't stay long—too busy harassing proper citizens!" Hector nudged Lemon, and she took the hint, walking again. It wasn't that he thought the mob would turn against them; he just didn't want to get caught up in their celebrations…or questions. He might have winced a little as he stepped down on his right foot because Lemon looked at him sharply.

"Are you okay? I can't believe you fought all those guys."

"I'm okay."

"I guess I see why Grando likes you." She stared at him as they walked by door after door. There was something off about those doors, and he couldn't put his finger on it at first, but then it clicked: they were too close together. He supposed it made sense, though, if this stack was anything like the ones being built back when he was in his last skin. Small living spaces meant the doors were closer together.

Lemon must have decided he wasn't going to comment because she asked, "Doesn't it bother you to kill someone like that?"

"Rusters trying to kill me?" Hector raised an eyebrow, his look plainly indicating what he thought of the question.

"Anyone, I guess. I mean, sure, I've seen people die—it's life in Helio, I guess, especially considering where I work. I don't think I could do it, though."

"Do what?"

"Hurt someone… kill someone." Hector looked into her gray eyes, looking for the hard glint he'd seen in there before. He found it and nodded.

"You could."