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 Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 6:47 pm
Ethan tried to laugh again but it left him as a sob, and he rocked back and forth in Björn's arms, trying to drown out Weaver's terrible voice in his head. It took a long time for him to calm down. When he spoke at last, his voice was a quavering croak.
"I'm sorry I stole your truck."
---
"Time yet?"
"Nearly, nearly...for heaven's sake, Walker, be more neat with your food. You're spilling bile all over your shirt."
"Hssssht."
"Do not give me your cheek, Mister Walker. Civilized men do not walk about with human organ secretions dribbling on their finery."
"Kttch."
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Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 6:52 pm
Björn gave a light laugh.
"Oh, Ethan, I don't care, I don't care." He gave him another headkiss and pet his hair affectionately. Awwww, love.
"Come on, let's get out of here. People are gonna get the wrong idea."
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Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 6:58 pm
Ethan did manage a laugh this time, albeit a very weak and tired one.
"Marcos will never let me live down a nervous breakdown," he said, attempting to joke as he stood up unsteadily. The voices in his memory had finally silenced themselves, which made hearing the real Weaver's voice a very difficult thing to bear.
"Mister Cebcharik. You have put us behind schedule."
"Don't quite appreciate the kink you've thrown in the works, lad. We usually run, if you'll forgive the dreadful pun, like clockwork. Isn't it so, Mister Walker?"
"Gnnnntch."
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Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 7:06 pm
Björn stood with Ethan and loomed, glaring at those...those things. Hellis shied away.
"Can I help you, gentlemen?"
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Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 7:14 pm
Mister Walker and Mister Weaver ignored Björn, glass eyes focused intently on Ethan. Mister Thatcher ventured to speak, baring his filed metal teeth in a loathsome smile.
"Your size and strength are of absolutely no import," he said directly. "We have been hired to do a job. We will complete it. Stand aside, or we will simply kill you as well."
"Leave them ALONE!" Ethan shouted, voice cracking. Weaver took a step forward and Ethan involuntarily shrank back.
"You are in no position, nor were you ever, to give orders. You have something in you that does not belong to you. We are simply taking back our employer's rightful property."
Ethan blanched, but to his credit did not shrink back further as Weaver took another step forward.
"Who?" he asked.
"Who who?" Weaver said. "Be direct, young master. It doesn't reflect well on your intellect to just babble out your questions."
Ethan swallowed hard, ignoring the scolding.
"Who hired you?"
"Our employer," Thatcher said obliquely.
"What's inside me?"
"Stolen property."
"Who put it there?"
"The Piper, of course. Now then. Enough chatter. Mister Walker..."
Walker advanced on Ethan soundlessly, a gruesomely bloodied but handsomely made knife in his hand. Ethan gave a terrible cry and tried to flee, but tripped and fell, crawling backwards on the ground and looking up at the flayed man's face.
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Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 7:19 pm
Björn just stood in front of Ethan and Hellis, knowing nothing of these thing's reconstructive properties, roundhouse-kicked this 'Mister Walker' in the face. Twice.
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Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 7:25 pm
Walker staggered back, his head hanging off his shoulders. The mess of cogs and gears that composed the skinners' insides ticked and tocked with strange menace as the automaton shrugged his head back onto his neck and set to reattaching his face.
"Gttttttch," he said, looking terrifyingly angry as he bolted for Ethan again. Ethan gave another cry and pulled a knife out of intangibility, ramming it into Walker's chest. The skinner staggered back half a step, looked down and then back up at Ethan, and struck him hard enough across the face to send him sprawling to the ground again. Weaver was watching, polishing his eyes with his monogrammed handkerchief, and Thatcher was slowly approaching the gas station were a dumbfounded attendant was staring, clutching at a gas pump nozzle and spraying a good deal of gasoline all over the ground in his inattention.
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Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 7:28 pm
And so, of course, Björn's fist impulsively met the automaton's chest. Sonnuvabitch, there was only so long they'd be able to randomly bat the men away before someone died.
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Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 7:32 pm
Walker didn't react to the blow other than giving Björn an unaccountably annoyed look, snapping his iron teeth at the man. Weaver, finishing up polishing his eyes, glanced over his shoulder and whistled to Thatcher.
"What are you doing?"
Thatcher, who had done nothing more than borrow the attendant's pen to cross a name or two off a ripped and dirty paper he'd taken from his pocket, sauntered back over.
"Just checking how many left after we finish the whelp," he said politely, pointing to the list. "Not too many, now."
Weaver nodded, turning back to the fighting.
"Mister Walker, we are on a tight schedule," he called waspishly. Walker nodded without turning and darted past Björn before he could land another blow, grabbing Ethan by the throat hard enough to bruise.
"Tcch," he said. Ethan struggled violently, lifted off his feet as Walker began to cut into his stomach.
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Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 7:35 pm
Oh, s**t. s**t. The sight of blood made Björn just about lose his mind again, but Hellis was the one to lunge forward and attempt to pull the man off. Flesh against meta was not necessarily the best kind of fight, but hey, it was the best he could do.
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Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 7:41 pm
Startled, Walker dropped Ethan onto the ground and whirled, trying to shove Hellis away. He made a dreadful screeching kind of noise, like metal twisting and snapping. He bared his teeth at Hellis and tried to bite, but got another knife to the chest instead.
"Leave them alone," Ethan snarled, tearing at Walker in a rage. Walker gave an inarticulate roar and struck out with both arms, the unyielding strength of his mechanical body enough to send both flying in opposite directions. Ethan had the very great misfortune in landing close to Mister Weaver.
"ENOUGH OF THIS!" Weaver said, his unctuous voice giving way to grating fury. He seized Ethan by the collar and unerringly stabbed a hand through the boy's stomach. Ethan jerked, head flying back and face set in an expression of shock that only grew worse as Weaver ripped his hand free, clutching a shining, gently pulsing something in his hand. He ripped it free of vein-like wires, and threw Ethan disdainfully onto the ground as he put the bizarre little object into his pocket. The light could still be seen pulsing through the pocket, in perfect sync to Ethan's racing heartbeat.
"Thatcher."
"Yes?"
"Break his head."
"You don't want to?"
"I've lost my taste for young Master Cebcharik. I find I liked him better when he didn't speak."
"As you will," Thatcher said, advancing on Ethan's prone body.
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Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 7:44 pm
Björn gave a quick yelp that may have been word in his mind and rammed the heel of his palm into the base of Mr. Thatcher's neck. Hellis followed up with, of course, another roundhouse-kick to the head. Ethan was bleeding and likely dead within minutes. SOMEONE was going to get their a** kicked, and it wasn't him.
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Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 7:48 pm
Thatcher gave a great growl, falling back and correcting injuries the pair had inflicted, glaring.
"It's just business," he said tartly, advancing on Ethan, ignoring any further blows. He swooped down on the boy, hands clutching at his head. Ethan stared up at him, his eyes oddly glassy and the pupils dilated. Thatcher's iron grin faded slightly as he suddenly drew his hand away. A small cut on Ethan's forehead from being scraped by a rock was bleeding freely, but the blood seemed...off.
"Black blood?" he murmured, puzzled. How peculiar. Seemed rather oily and it stank as well. "Killing will be a mercy for you, lad."
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Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 7:50 pm
Björn swallowed hard. Black blood...last time he'd seen that, it scrabbled across a wooden floor. Hellis just crept closer, breathing ragged. No, no dying!
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Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 7:55 pm
Expecting further interruptions from Björn and Hellis, Thatcher looked behind him in confusion.
"What did the stupid prat do to himself?" he asked irritably. "Mister Weaver, check the object. The brat might have damaged it."
Weaver took the thing out of his pocket, examining it. Blood had flowed through the vein-like wires, and what dripped out of it now was only red. Weaver shrugged, looking puzzled.
"Is he dead?"
Thatcher turned around and looked at Ethan and gave him a sharp, precise blow to his face. His head snapped to the other side but his expression remained masklike and unresponsive.
"In the process of," Thatcher said uncertainly, eyeing the wound in Ethan's stomach. A great patch of black was spreading over his clothing, dotted here and there with unexpected motes of red.
"How str-aughk."
Thatcher had bent down to look at the wound better, only to find Ethan's hands suddenly tearing into his face, snarling like a rabid animal.
"Get OFF, brat!"
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