"ul werk fr uhniskryr naww," the Mutant snarls, hateful eyes on those surviving gangsters, extended fingers pulling and tearing the remaining chunks of greyish-purple intestines from the broken cavity of their once King Boy. They cannot help but stand in awe of this new mutant king, baptised in gore, a tight frame of heavy muscle and bone. The product of some great and awful work at self-perfection, a mission distorted by time.
Vanity bone replacements, rings and bracelets, credits and exotic currencies, drugs, torn-out neural tek, gold and silver, scalps and crowns, all are tossed with abandon to the group. The few left remaining, once held fast by terror, are overcome by greed, quickly snatching up anything thrown to them. The gangsters offer snivels of thanks, quiet praises to the generosity of masters, salutations almost blasphemous.
"alz yrs," the Mutant speaks, concealing sickness at the lack of loyalty and nerve in these latest "agents", carefully forming each word, slowly. "just re-ch owt, take. any-one, any-were, yrs now. just one thing in return."
Affirmations flow back, meek, surrendering. Anything you want, need, demand, command; yes, hail; what do you want of us, o Lord?
"sean brantly."
Only the mission. Find him out. Draw him out.
Become him.
The snow has begun to thaw.
"You've been down there for a long time. Don't you think it is time to come back in?"
Caelestis ignores the internal bleating, self-questioning doubts. What would be the purpose of reporting back in with nothing new to report? All he knew now was that there were horrors that went beyond his training as a technician, facts he had always suspected but never desired to fully know.
Obstensibly, he had been sent down into the Scrapyards to locate a killer, Ujuor, but that mission had been lost to a growing indifference. Even trying to recall the origin of those hateful feelings just left a cloud of deep confusion. Why had he been angry? Was it any better before? Perhaps Ujuor was a liberator, not a killer, opening a new way, a new chapter in a new game. Passing thoughts, and none of it mattered now. Memories, missions, unravelled and were forgotten. There was the lead on a man called Chuck, only to find he was "gone". What did Lenisker want with Chuck? It was never explained. Very little is.
The Scrapyards have become too large to monitor for anything but threats to the Cities. New zaibatsus moving in, bringing with them new killers, new orders. Turf wars have become so common that they don't even interest anyone watching from Space. An ant colony, a trash heap, a population booming out of control in the most toxick environment ever known.
Perhaps he had been forgotten too, left to wander the world of his own accord, a ghost in every sense. Was this how all agents operated, always in the dark, always forgetting? He could not say. How long had it been? It was impossible to be sure. It becomes meaningless. Only the current mission could be focused on.