'FOUND XIII'

  "Wait!" Kip interrupted,

  "What?" I say,

  "I'm cold." Kip admitted,

  "I don't care." I bluntly reply,

  He'd blankly stare at me for a few seconds. I then decide to go over to my mag-pack and grab a small flat rectangular device, and I throw it at him. He manages to clumsily catch it.

  "What's this meant to be?" Kip asked,

  "Figure it out kid." I reply,

  He fumbles around with it for a moment, before discovering the obvious on button, and the centre of the device lit up as a red ring which began to emit heat.

  "You have a heater? Why?" Kip annoyingly asked,

  "Let's just say I've been in the deepest of places." I sarcastically answer,

  Kip rolled his eyes at my answer, and left the machine next to him. It has a good while of battery while not being expensive to recharge at all. That's mostly thanks to me keeping it in good condition.

  My strategy here is boring him to sleep. He's older, so he can handle something a bit more brutal than what I'd usually spill.

  "I remember when I was 7, about 17 years ago, I had a friend who had no name. Well I'd be lying that he had no designation, we all did, numbered related to batch and to the position in a batch. No better than a manufactured goods just like anything else that came out of the den." I began,

  "You're 24 years old?" Kip then interrupted,

  "Yes." I answer,

  A moment of silence,

  "It was a day or maybe night as it usually was, in the production line which printed out some metallic piece to whatever good went through the pipeline out of this place. The machines consistently broke and the entire place was maybe cleaned once every year."

  "There was a particular press which broke often and always managed to cause damage to whoever was sent to fix it. It was this press that me and my friend were ordered to fix, it was this press which he was crushed under."

  "It's safe to say that's when I decided not to make another friend." I say,

  Something fell from the side of the room and I immediately unholster and point my weapon in the direction of the noise. It was nothing. So I continue.

  "Regardless, I was deemed good enough at fixing machinery that I was eventually the one sent down to the ones which had either been deemed irreparable, or dangerous to repair. Compared to these pieces of tech, the press that killed my friend seemed like a dream job.

  "I don't believe I was naturally good at it, I was just lucky enough to not have anything go wrong for an extended period of time. I even was able to dabble in circuitry due to the complexity of some of the machines. I don't think I actually fixed one thing." I explain,

  "Doesn't that seem pointless?" Kip interrupted again,

  "It was. But I was expendable, and they were overstaffed at the time, so I'm guessing it was their way of saying 'find a way to die'." I reply,

  "Who were the den leaders?" Kip asked,

  He's engaging more than I expected, but if it means getting energy out of him, I'll answer whatever questions he has.

  "I can recall three people who could fit that." I began,

  "There was a woman who looked after us from the point of infancy to about 6 years old, which is when they began to prepare you to work on the conveyer. She answered no questions, taught nothing, and was as cold as steel- personality wise."

  "There was a man who managed the floor, he had a harshness toward the girls, though that doesn't mean he spared us any harm. One of his more memorable punishments was putting people on the more dangerous machines, or machines he knew were approaching the end."

  "Lastly, another man who had barely showed himself to us, he preferred quickly scurrying over some balcony or upper walkway over risking us looking at him. Though considering that, he was probably the man who ran the whole operation, couldn't bother getting dirty himself." I explain,

  I leaned further on one of the panels behind me, which I immediately moved away from due to strange noises coming from it. Looks like most things in this room are prepared to fall apart.

  "I'd give slips for their names and locations." I conclude,

  "So you're from a manufacturing den?" Kip surmised,

  I nodded in response,

  "I remember Lila used to threaten to send me to one, but I never really got why. I guess that explains it." Kip said,

  "If you were sent to one of those, you'd just be sold further into the centre, probably to be dissected." I coldly explained,

  Kip would look at me in disgust for a moment.

  "Oh- well, how'd you become a scrapper?" Kip asked,

  "If you stopped interrupting me, you'd realise that's what I'm getting to." I reply,

  A prolonged silence falls on the room.

  "By the time I was 9 the man who ran the floor had decided to set his particular sights on me. The reason why? I dropped a heavy tool on his foot while he was in the middle of attacking and screaming at some girl, it wasn't worth the trouble."

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  "My reward for my kindness, was a lesson not to be. I was sent back into their little destroyed machinery section with the girl. It was a machine only she could properly fit inside to check. In the middle of our attempt, the machine activated, and she died." I explain,

  "I don't understand. Why?" Kip then asked,

  "You took the words right out of my mouth. Then and now. Why? I even asked him myself that question. He said it was a lesson." I explain,

  "What kind of lesson gets a kid killed?" Kip exclaimed,

  "The permanent kind. I never helped someone else avoid punishment again." I bluntly state,

  "From that point, this pattern happened thrice. He just began using my fake-job as a way to kill other people, and I get lumped in with the man on the floor. Lucky me, at the ripe age of 10 I was one of the monsters with him and the woman."

  "I had no way or need to defend myself from whispering, I had no friends to fall back on, I had no way of understanding anything beyond my job. I'd be lying if I told you it didn't take it's toll, eventually I sort of began hoping one of the machines would end it, no-one else dead at my hand." I admit,

  I had to compose myself for a second, I kept feeling something irritating, seeing something a bit hazy. I shook my head.

  "Something wrong?" Kip asked,

  "Just remembering." I dismissively state,

  "I had attempted to help someone again. It was a mistake as most things I seem to do, and despite me attempting to get some other podlings to leave them be, I made their life miserably worse."

  "This kid, whoever they were, decided to end their own life on a press. The simple fact I had shown them any sort of kindness was akin to being in league with the man on the floor. To the others they were less than a person." I explain,

  "How'd you escape?" Kip optimistically asked,

  I sunk back for a moment before then bursting into laughter.

  "Escape? I guess you could call it that, but that's the thing kid. This den is where I was made, but I was not raised there- don't get that mixed up." I say,

  "What do you mean?" Kip asked,

  I simply raised a finger in front of my mouth, bidding another silence.

  "At this point I was 11, I was assigned another boy to send to die, but this time I think I had finally reached my limit of second-hand murder. I wasn't good at remaining complacent, though in this case I guess my nature came in handy."

  "Another one of those death traps were lined up for us, and the boy knew it was his execution, he was a few years younger, and much smaller. He was known for being a screamer when it came to the nightly cry new workers experience. It was just part of the job."

  "When he forced himself under, the machine then caught fire. I half dived in myself this time, and attempted to drag him out, but it had been rigged to explode."

  "I consider my survival the first time I was ever lucky." I explain,

  I shuffled through my mag-pack for a moment, and pull out a water capsule for myself, leaving a nice moment of respite for both of us.

  "If you could call luck losing a large portion of your lower jaw to molten metal and shrapnel. The boy didn't survive, his body acted as quite the convenient shield to save me. The explosion attracted multiple podling workers and the floor man himself."

  "I dragged myself up with an assortment of bodily injuries, ranging from burns to lacerations, but the podlings looked on me with an apathy or more of an disdain. The floor man smiled down on me as if it was exactly what he wanted, the fuck."

  "He dragged me across the floor, and the whole floor watched as I was taken across outside the factory room for the first time in my life. I couldn't speak, I could barely twitch and gurgle as I was taken through a lobby, which was busy with collectors, scrappers, even cleaners and reavers."

  "Nobody cared and I was thrown out the doors and left for the acid to melt." I continue,

  "How did you survive?" Kip desperately asked,

  "My mentor." I simply reply,

  I scratched the side of my cheek for a couple of seconds, before taking another sip from the capsule, and I look at the metallic reflection.

  "I attempted to move, but I couldn't, and I was left with the rain slowly melting my skin- or well what was left of it with all the burns from the machine. I attempted to pick myself up countless times, and eventually I looked up and there was a small group of scrappers."

  "Originally I believed they were getting some amusement out of my struggle, and I was granted newfound tenacity, their glares managed to motivate me. I dragged myself across the jagged concrete and steel to their shelter from the rain."

  "I half expected them to throw me back into the rain, or maybe just shoot me, or just leave me there to die from my wounds. Instead the largest of them in the middle picked my up with ease by my arm, and he would take me inside."

  "The next time I woke up, I wasn't even there anymore, and I had something heavy on my face." I explain,

  "Wait- that's how you got that ugly mechanical jaw?" Kip excitedly commented,

  "As cheap as they get, I made it last this long though." I state, tapping it twice,

  "So that's how you met your mentor? What happened next? What about your old den? How'd you get that terrible accent?" Kip then blurted,

  Why the fuck does he care so much?

  "Stories for another time, runt. Consider yourself satisfied. Go to sleep." I rudely reply,

  Kip stretched before dragging over his own mag-pack to lie his head on, which is fair, the concrete isn't exactly the best ground to sleep on.

  From that point Kip seemed to relax enough to finally drift off, thank fuck.

  I put the water capsule back into my mag-pack, and I'm left staring at the broken light hanging above the barrel in the centre of the room. I take my helmet off, my head was feeling itchy. There is a strange ticking noise coming from the back of the room and it caught my curiosity.

  I get up from my place, even though I was somewhat comfortable, and made my way over to an amalgamation of broken equipment at the back of the room. I moved aside some old broken things before opening a hollowed out panel of the main piece of machinery at the back.

  The gadget at the back of the hollowed out machine was ticking, but luckily it wasn't a bomb, it was a beacon. Someone had been in this exact spot recently, but had decided to leave it marked and this wasn't here just a couple weeks ago.

  It's fair practice to leave beacons in particular spots, so it's the work of a scrapper- I think.

  I decided to leave the beacon in its place, if someone is capable of maintaining it on a sensor, then disabling it is only going to reveal ourselves. Otherwise it may attract them over, which may cause its own set of problems.

  Beacons are used to mark locations, spots of interest, or as proof of whatever their searching for being or not being there. Regardless, it adds up that the rust-bucket we found so damaged could be damaged by another scrapper, my main gripe with that is the lack of pursuit.

  I wouldn't bet on this being anything else but a scrapper- though, maybe I'm just being hopeful. It could even be the result of a caravan grouping deciding to skulk around, which is even more hopeful admittedly.

  All we can do is be prepared for whatever we come across.

  I walk back over to my previous spot and begin to examine my weaponry, doing it with one hand is quite the task though.

  It's still as tedious as always at least, though unquestionably vital to any scrapper surviving the night, you never know when you may need it.

  It's good to always keep your weapons clean, there so much crap going around the place at all times any sort of chemical or thick dust can completely ruin your gun. Though any weapon that still works is not particularly fragile, compared to the environment, it's like carrying glass.

  Likewise to your life, it's good to keep yourself light and keep yourself clean or you might just end up jamming when you need to fire the most. You never want to carry too much, even if some piece may provide you some great haul, greed kills you in a profession like this.

  Contrary to what any apprentice believes, scrappers do what no-one else wants to do, and sometimes when you do something enough; you end up wanting to do what no-one else wants to do. More importantly you may end up doing something no-one should do.

  There's a reason why most of the problems start from scrappers.

  It's an easy step down to being a raider, then from there a reaver, and once you reach the bottom- congratulations, you're a cleaner. Not particularly in that order, but it's the progression many take.

  It's my job to make sure the kid doesn't fall down those holes, I don't like repetition.