Sink

The hunt for her went on for weeks.

She cradled a small bundle in her arms, the neon lights casting shadows, playing tricks with her eyes. Everywhere she turned, Marl’s Maw seemed to be there. Last week, she thought she saw The Lovers, but it was only a billboard.

She stole food from grocery stores, even though she was dressed like the royalty she was. Her clothes were dirty and torn, riddled with bullet holes, so she came off as a beggar woman.

She slowly made her way through an alley, the neon blue lights casting a lovely glow on the dark skinned people that lived here. They nodded to her, waved to her, smiled at her. She nodded back, pulling her hood further down her face. She saw their implants. These people chose the way of the Wire, adding enhancements from the earth beneath their feet that held onto technology from centuries passed. She didn’t follow that path. Her people stuck and clung to the ways of Nature, taking in the Mother as a whole and using Her power naturally.

The alley started to get closer, the bodies started to squeeze past each other, barely any space to move comfortably. She could feel the hot, computerized breath of a man on the back of her neck as she passed, his hands seeming to roam underneath her robes, looking for money, for her dry mound, for her lack of tits. She placed a hand on his, his hand pulling away, the shock of her touching him sending his wired nerves into shock. She ignored his mumbled screams as she continued on, his friends coming over to try to reset him.

She stopped walking, sliding down a wall onto the broken asphalt. Her feet ached, her calves screamed, her thighs, hips, all wailed for a break. Her stomach snarled for something other than dirty heels of bread, her arms sobbed for rest. Her head boomed for a solid night of rest.

She looked down at the bundle she had been carrying for weeks, this… -thing- she had borne from her own womb. She moved the blankets from it’s face, a sleeping babe cooing softly. She smiled at it, having no hard feelings toward the baby. Just the situation that caused this sweet, adorable abomination to be born. The baby stirred, it’s eyes opening, the thin green circle of the Wire sat between the leather brown Iris and the black pupil. She smiled at the baby, burying her face into the baby’s, taking in the sweet smell of baby, even if it was synthetic. She would have no way to breastfeed a cyborg infant.

The sweet tender moment was over when she heard the heavy footsteps of one of the Maw. She cried out in pain as she stood, bracing herself against the wall, weakly continuing her walk through the alley.

“HALT.”

She stopped walking, her eyes seeing the end of the alley through all the people in front of her. The wide street, nearly empty, the bullettrain running on time, the cars hovering their drunken patrons home, all within a few hundred meters. She took a deep breath, taking in the smell of the rain that was about to pour from the sky, the old dirt that held more secrets, the trees from home several thousand leagues away. Her strength came back, even if a little. She ducked down and started to sprint like a gust of wind between peoples legs, carrying her baby close to her chest. She tried to tune out the screams of the people being shot, the thousands of shells falling into the ground tinkled in her ear, like the gold coins and the rubies that fell on the table when her parents sold her to Marl.

Her speed slowed as she finally made it out of the alley, sliding to stop in front of a car. She gasped, holding out a hand to stop the car, a thick wall of ice coming between them.

She took off running again, going down the street, not looking back to see which one of the 20 of Marl’s android guard was there to recapture her. She made a turn down a side street, engulfed in darkness, save for a small barrel fire shared by two people. She rushed over to them, shoved her baby into one of there arms, pulled out a small bag of coins from her hip, kissed the baby’s forehead and took off the chain from around her own neck. She said a few words into it, the chain glowing for a moment before shoving it in with the bundle.

The two people blinked in confusion but said nothing. This behavior was normal in their neck of the city.

She looked at them fully, her hood removed from her face. They blushed and lowered their heads.

“Please keep my baby safe,” she pleaded, a sad smile growing across her face. “She will be much older when we finally meet.” She nodded to them and went back towards the street just as the rain started to fall. The guard that stood meters away was X, the tenth of the Marl’s honored guard. They stood 15 feet tall, their metal skin an obsidian, so dark the rain made them look like an oil slick.

“Where is the infant?” X called out, red eyes scanning the woman in front of them.

“I killed it,” she yelled back, the rain coming in hard sheets, pelting her skin.

“You would never,” X replied. X had no facial features on their head, just a pair of red eyes. X was the most dangerous. That’s probably why Marl sent X out to find her. She was just as deadly.

She tossed back her cloak, the greens and blues of the fabric moved like a wave crashing onto shore. She stood tall and proud as her dark red hair stuck to her dark brown skin. She held her hands out as X started to shoot at her, a gust of wind sending the bullets back to the android, bouncing off of X. The android would have laughed. X just stood there, watching, before disappearing in a flash.

She gasped, stumbling over her robes as X’s faceless face bored into her’s. She took a step back, her foot stepping onto nothing.

“Where is the INFANT?!” X boomed.

She grinned.

“Fuck you,” she whispered before falling back into the darkness that was the start of the mountain range known as The Split. She wove her hands together, screamed out the old tongue of her people as ice started to form over her feet. As she shouted the last words of her spell, she hit the water, the ice growing thicker around her body as she sank to the bottom of the water.