Dobson grabbed the injector and tore the cap away between her teeth. She drove the needle into her leg and held it, watching as the plunger delivered a chemical cocktail of synthetic energy straight into her system. The skin on her clammy face flushed hot. Her heartbeat doubled. One by one, her failing systems reluctantly blinked back on, half-functioning, fueled by the temporary kick. The effects wouldn’t last long, spurring Dobson to work as quickly as possible.

  Hand shaking, she gripped her left arm below the elbow and triggered the manual switch, transforming her appendage from a torch back into a fully functioning limb. Next, she reached into Misty’s tattered pocket and withdrew a fistful of blue vials. Dobson administered the first two to herself, swapping the empty doses of tronic in her right arm for fresh ones. Coolness flooded her system, combating the burning fire of the synthetic energy. Having assured her internal organs would not succumb to heat exhaustion, Dobson set to work on Misty, replacing her serum reserves and applying sterile packs to as many open wounds as she could find.

  Misty came back around the moment Dobson flipped her over. She flailed uselessly, shouting, “No, not on my back, Dobsy!”

  Dobson scowled, confused, as she looked her squirming partner up and down with a calculating eye. “Your spine?” She tried and failed to activate her mech vision to confirm. “Is it broken?”

  Misty settled back down into a pitiful pile on her side. “No, it’s just…” Her voice trailed into a ragged whisper. “That’s how they put dead people, ya know? I don’t want to wake up dead.”

  Dobson wiped away the mix of blood and coolant leaking from the open wound split across the center of Misty’s forehead. She peered closer, relieved to discover Misty’s armored skull had held strong against the blow. Other than a split head and a rather nasty dent, the wound was, as they said, merely skin deep.

  “It is logically impossible to wake up dead,” Dobson stated matter-of-factly.

  “I just… I’ve seen a lot of dead people, Dobsy. And when it’s all said and done, someone always comes in and lines ‘em up on their backs.” Misty took a shaky breath to steady her nerves. The effort hurt. She winced in pain, automatically drawing her knees closer to her chest. “Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I still see ‘em.”

  Finished cleaning the wound on her forehead, Dobson’s attention settled on Misty’s left arm. Or, rather, the lack of it. Judging from the damage, it looked as if the entire appanage had been ripped away in one clean pull. Dread settled in Dobson’s gut like an iron anvil. She could patch minor splits and scrapes, but not a missing appendage. This was well beyond her expertise.

  “There’s a row of them,” Misty continued absentmindedly. “All covered in dirty white sheets. Eyes wide underneath, staring up at the sky, lifeless.”

  Swallowing her trepidation, Dobson dove right in. Multi-colored chemicals leaked onto her hands as she tied off the severed rubber tubing dangling from Misty’s arm socket. The act of balancing a conversation while struggling to return Misty to a semi-functioning state was not one Dobson was well-equipped for. She tried, nonetheless, even if her questions felt like all of the wrong ones. “Who?”

  “My old crew. Back when I was just a no-name scrapper, hotwiring parts for meals and a roof over my head.”

  Definitely the wrong question, Dobson concluded. “Oh.”

  “Bunch of idiots, the lot of them.” Misty tried to laugh, but it sounded more akin to a barking cough. She pulled her knees in closer, wincing, as tears leaked from her eyes. “They taught me everything I know.”

  “We could talk about something else if you want,” Dobson offered. She would have rather not talk at all, but suspected that wasn’t an available choice given the circumstances. Misty needed something to latch onto at the moment and, alas, it appeared conversation was the only thing keeping her from slipping back under.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “It was honest work, though.” Misty prattled on in a far-off voice, as if she hadn’t heard Dobson’s suggestion at all. “Well, honest in the sense that we weren’t actively hurting anyone. That counts, right?”

  Dobson dared not disagree. She merely nodded along as her slippery fingers fumbled to tie off the last of the leaking coolant lines dangling from Misty’s battered body.

  Misty’s wide eyes glazed over as she spoke. She was suddenly somewhere else. Far, far away, reliving the moment in question all over again. “Things were going well. Business was booming.” She paused, drawing the tip of her tongue over her lips, inadvertently pushing a dribble of blood from her mouth. It trickled down the side of her battered face, leaving a trail of red. “And then some big shot borg manufacturer had to go and take offense to us using their scrapped parts. They paid a gang to shut us down. Showed up in the middle of the night without any warning and shot up the place. Gunned down everyone inside but me.”

  Dobson’s hands faltered. She tried to hide it, but her confusion reflected in her voice all the same. “You were… one of the victims?”

  “Aye,” Misty said miserably. “I hid like a yellow-bellied coward, Dobsy.”

  “But I always heard—”

  “That it was me wielding the gun?” A weak laugh escaped Misty’s trembling lips. “That’s the cruelty of it all. I turned out to be a true-born killer, make no mistake about it, but it was revenge that launched my career, not betrayal. I hunted every last member of that gang down. And when I was finished with them, I went and took on the manufacturer, too. No head was spared, believe you me.”

  Dobson gnawed the corner of her lip as she considered Misty’s words.

  “By the end of it, I’d earned myself quite the reputation. No chop-shop would work with me afterwards, thinking I’d turned on my crew. As far as people were concerned, the only thing I was good for was killing.” Misty tucked her face into her arm with a sigh. “So that’s what I did.”

  Dobson was at a loss for words. She tried anyway. “I, uh…”

  And just like the flip of a light switch, Misty’s voice switched back to its normal cheery self. “Are you done patching up that arm yet?”

  Dobson sat back, mystified. “I did what I could.”

  “Good. Cus I’m starting to feel better now. A bit more like my usual self.” With Dobson’s assistance, Misty managed to sit upright. Naturally, that wasn’t enough for her, and she went gung-ho and tried to stand.

  Dobson reached out and caught her, pulling Misty back down into a sitting position. “We just barely made it out of this by the skin of our teeth, Misty. We need time to recover. And after that, a plan.”

  Misty lifted one eyebrow as a shark-toothed grin pulled across her battered face.

  “A plan that does not involve charging in blind, guns a-blazing, winging it by the seat of our pants,” Dobson clarified.

  The smile slipped from Misty’s face. She crossed her arms, tried to anyway, before remembering with a pained grimace that she only had one. Scowling, she sank lower against the ground. “Recover-smover, Dobsy. Our train’s waiting for us just outside.”

  Dobson recalled what pieces of Misty’s interrogation she’d overheard during the fight. “And how many are waiting for us on that train, exactly?”

  “Well, the conductor, for one,” Misty admitted. “Apparently, he doesn’t leave the train for safety purposes.”

  “And?”

  “And this feller named Bradley. The head baddie, I think. Word is, Florence shot his nose off and now he’s holed up inside our train sulking.”

  “And how many Company Men does he have with him?”

  “I dunno.” Misty shrugged with her good shoulder. “My interrogee met his untimely end before I could get my answer.”

  “All the more reason to give ourselves a moment to recover.”

  “But that’s going to take too long.” Misty rolled her head back with a groan. “What if they leave in the meantime? That train is our only way out of here.”

  “You think Stillwater is going to tolerate them leaving the job unfinished? A rebelling civilian outpost and an overturned prison train?” Dobson scoffed at the notion. “No self-respecting company would dare leave this kind of mess behind. That train’s not going anywhere.”

  “Fine,” Misty conceded grumpily.

  They could have simply sat in silence, soaking it in, while the liquid tronic trickling through their systems worked its magic. Perhaps it was the insufferable waiting that got to her. Forced to sit and think, unable to escape the squirmy uncomfortableness inside of her, Misty took it upon herself to make Dobson feel it as well.

  “You could have told me sooner, you know,” Misty said, staring straight ahead at the smoke-damaged wall. The charred outline of a dead gunslinger stood blazed into the rock, the final testament to the moment his life was snuffed out. His charred remains lay smoldering on the dirt floor below.

  Misty curled her lips, taking great care to enunciate each word as she spoke them. “About your problem.”

  steal borrow more material.