Red hazard lights bounced off the walls, reflecting off discarded metal and oozing waste in a hellish glow. The rattling of metal on metal filled the room, as the flying garbage truck took turn after turn. The air reeked of decomposing food and scorched metal.
The Hauler descended lower into the ground, causing some of the lighter scraps, like plastic, paper and foam packing, to be lifted into the air before drifting down as the truck slowed.
Buried beneath piles of trash, slumped against scrap metal and circuit boards, lay a man. Though, in terms of appearance he looked more metal than man, with metal limbs protruding from where his fleshy arms and legs should be. A mechanical spine ran along his back and ports were embedded into the side of his head.
Despite the rattling and turbulence of the hauler the man did not stir, remaining unconscious with the only sign of life being the very subtle rise and fall of his chest.
Then, a speaker blared from somewhere outside the hauler's walls, voice serene and synthetic:
"Thank you for recycling with WasteNet Global."
The message is repeated three times.
"Please clear the exit" it said, just once this time.
A hydraulic hiss seeped into the room as a large revolving door opened, allowing small amounts of the waste to escape out the gaps.
With a loud hum, a conveyer sprang to life. Slowly dragging the trash out of the truck. The truck parked just a meter over an already made trash pile. As the trash began to spill out of the truck it made the pile collapse, then begin to tumble down the hill.
Soon it was the mans turn, and with a slide the unconscious body began its own fall down the hill, narrowly missing pipes ready to impale him.
The flailing of his body kept him moving for nearly thirty seconds, before stopping nearly two thirds of the way down or just seven meters before the ground. The man lay there still unconscious with a heavy weight forcing down his chest.
Other than the crushing weight, the unconscious man had made it out remarkably unscathed, with only minor scratches along his body, a majority of which caused only cosmetic harm to his metal appendages.
As the weight pushed down on his chest causing every breath to be a struggle, hisses of still working machinery and the putrid smell of rotting food and oil surround him finally rousing him from his sleep.
The man's eyes began to flutter open only to be immediately closed due to the lights glare. Slowly the man pried his eyes open, as they begin to adapt to the light.
His eyes were drawn upward, above him a ceiling of bricks painted to look like a natural sky covered his view. With murals of clouds on the ceilings and spotlights standing in for the sun.
He saw large trash heaps that climbed so high they looked like they were reaching for the sky. Each pile was tens of meters high, filled with old scrap metal and thrown away products.
'Heavy,' was the mans first thought.
Waking up under a massive mechanical sign placed him in a terrible position with difficulty breathing from the pressure on his chest and his arms stuck to his sides without being able to really move them.
'What.. Where am I..' quickly followed by a sharp pain in his head, causing him to hiss out in pain.
A flickering HUD flooded his vision, flashing:
[ERROR]
[TECHNICAL ISSUE]
Loud static drowned out his hearing, muffling the nearby surroundings, though it seemed to vanish just as quick as it came, bringing relative clarity back to his ears.
He tried to push the large mechanical sign off of his chest, but it only caused the pile to shift, causing more trash to tumble down from above.
As he braced to try to push the sign off again, muffled voices and faint footsteps attracted his attention.
He paused, listening closer, to see if he was imagining it.
While listening, his mind begins to pick apart the situation.
"two hundred.. maybe two hundred and fifty feet - five maybe six people, depending on their armaments I could take them-" He dissects the situation before he can process what it is exactly he is doing.
"Wait.. what.. why am I thinking this? what is going on?" The man thinks, in disbelief at what had just happened.
As his inner turmoil built, the people began to move closer, allowing for him to more clearly pick up on their conversation.
"... -ld you stop talking about that already, it was a one time thing." one of the people said with a grumble. "Were coming up on the WasteNet drop now anyway so keep your eyes peeled."
"Yeah yeah," another member of the group said with a chuckle.
They quickly made there way in the direction of the trapped man, with a woman in the lead holding out a device.
The trapped man frantically tried to call for help, except, each time he tried to speak:
[HARDWARE ISSUE]
Making him incapable of calling for help.
"Now if this piece of junk tracker is right, the hauler should have dropped the junk innn.. THAT pile" the woman said making a show of the situation with an exaggerated point towards the pile.
The pile the man was also trapped in, though obscured from their view.
The group approached the pile, scanning for anything of value.
One member of the group began to complain saying, "With how fast technology has been progressing these days, can't someone just make some machine to scan all this junk and pick out the valuable stuff."
The first member answered the man with a sigh, "You know how it is Dax, those people at the top don't care about how much trash we have to rummage through to get anything, just who we are selling it to."
Dax answered back, "Well maybe they should, maybe we can make them,"
"How? By joining up with PVI, everyone knows they're just corporate dogs." the woman chimed in
"I don't know, it's just a nice thought I guess." Dax said lowly.
"Well that's just how it is, now get over here and help us look for valuable stuff already." A different voice chimed in.
Five voices, that's how many the man counted, four male and one female.
He can see them but they can't see him, a piece of metal obscures their view unless looking at the exact precise angle.
'Five voices. Four male. One female. Movements scattered. No clear formation.'
'They're not soldiers. Not trained. Opportunists? Scavs?'
'Weapons? One's got a firearm. Seems to be the leader. Crude. Homemade?'
'-What the hell was that? Again? That wasn't me, it didn't feel like me, it felt like my thought process was hijacked. Who even am I? And what the hell is a Scav?'.
Another blistering headache rocked his mind, making him hiss in pain. Luckily not loud enough to attract any of the group, but enough to momentarily disorient him.
The group begins to circle the garbage pile, slowly working there way up grabbing anything they consider worth selling.
He knows it won't take them long before they make their way to him. He is only roughly 7 meters up and if the sign hadn't fallen on him and obscured his figure, he likely would have already been found.
He didn't know what to do, they haven't made themselves out to be overly aggressive in any way. Sure the gun's scary but, he doesn't know why, he has a feeling that having weapons isn't all that uncommon of a thing.
'Maybe it's just for protection or something,' He thinks to himself, 'While a bit off-putting it would be very helpful if whatever the hell that early thing was would kick back in and help me out here.'
Unfortunately, the voice doesn't seem interested in working when he want's it to. As such he must come up with a plan for himself.. while trapped under a massive sign.. having no idea who or where he is.. against a group of five with at least one person armed.
'Great'
....
It didn't take long before a member of their group chanced upon his body, around five minutes to be exact. Luckily within that time frame, he had come up with a plan. Simple, act dead.
'Not the best of plans,' he thought to himself, 'but I like to think its pretty good for the situation.'
The hope is that when one of them chances upon his 'body' then they will free him from the debris and depending on their actions from there, they will determine my actions.
If all goes to plan they will all be walking away fine and dandy. If it doesn't then he will need to improvise.
"Woah", one of the members, a male voice, said as he discovered his limp body.
"Forget digging through the trash, this is our jackpot"
"Hey, Juno, get over here, I found our jackpot" He called out, towards the direction the presumed leader with the gun went.
"On my way" was bellowed back over the trash pile.
After a couple of minutes the members of the gang moved over towards where one of their members found his 'body', following Juno to check out what was found. While waiting the member who found him decided to move the sign out of the way to get a better look at what augments he had.
"Damn.. check out those arms. Augments like that? That's a big payout. Nice find Latch." The woman of the group congratulated.
"Thanks Denise" Latch chuckled back, with a giddy expression.
"Aug-limbs, full spinal port array… hell, even the oculars look enhanced. Guy's basically a walking check." Juno said as he pushed some trash the side.
"Have you checked if he's dead yet?" Dax asked.
"Nah, I haven't, but I haven't seen him move a muscle this entire time, not even to breathe." Latch answered back.
"With guys this decked out, you gotta check for all possibilities, who knows what kinda augments he has on the inside." Dax explained, stepping forward to check his pulse.
"Well," Denise probed, "is he dead?"
"Hmm.. nah I don't think so," he said, "he seems to have a pulse, though very faint, probably in a deep sleep or something."
"Maybe a shell, or something," Juno said, "Doesn't matter, his augments are pricey, so we strip him and sell him."
"Let's move him to flat ground, so we can strip him more easily." the final member of the group said.
Two members of the group grabbed his still limp body and began to move him down the uneven ground of the trash heap and towards a spot of solid ground.
-------
'Figures,' he said in his head, 'of course wanted to strip me for parts and sell them to the highest bidder.'
As the members began to move his body down to the floor, he had to very quickly come up with some sort of battle plan to get away safely.
He very slightly opened up just a sliver of his eyes, just enough to get a glimpse at the members of the group.
The one behind him, Juno, who has hold of his arms, is the one with the gun. A shotgun. He remembers seeing him with it before, when they discovered the trash pile, and since he can't see anyone else with a gun he can just assume that he still has it.
The person in front him, Dax, holding his legs appears to have a knife. Its tucked in his waistband and his shirt covers it, but he can see the outline of one.
He can't get a clear picture of any of the others, and has no idea if they are armed, and if they are armed, to what level.
As such, he must come up with a plan off a very limited amount of information, and trust that he can get the gun out of the guy's hand before he gets shot in the face.
'Great'
After a few near falls and the person in front muttering something about, "fucking trash piles", they got down onto the flat ground and unceremoniously dropped him in front of the final unnamed member who had already finished preparing his tools.
Already elbow deep into his tool box, he pulls out some sort of mechanical knife.
"Let's start with the arms. Augments this good? Gotta stay intact for top cred," he said, wiping the blade on his jacket.
He grabbed onto his arm, and the blade whirred to life with a buzz, vibrating.
As the man moved the knife into position to cut off the arm, a single eye opened. Silver, with the pupil narrowing on the 5th members face.
Before the scavenger could react, the man reached over with his free hand, grabbing his wrist with vice-like strength.
*Crunch*
There was a sickening crunch, and a bloodcurdling scream erupted from his throat. Though it was quickly cut off as in the next instant, the man reached into the tool box, grabbed out a screwdriver and drove it into the mans throat, killing him.
"SHIT!" Juno screamed, already raising the shotgun.
Though it was too late, as the man had already moved behind a trash pile for cover, the buckshot tearing through plastic and old metal.
"Flank him", Juno ordered, "Don't let him-"
Too late again as the man was already moving, staying low and zigzagging between cover. He grabbed an old metal pipe with a part of the top cut off giving it a sharp end. He hurled it towards Dax with surprising force and accuracy, piercing his chest and killing him on the spot. His body crumpled to the ground without a sound.
Denise fired an unaccounted for pistol, narrowly missing the side of his head. The man vaulted over a pile of thrown-away machinery landing in front of her with unnatural speed, and ducking her next shot. A sharp punch to the gut caused her to fold in half, grabbing the gun out of her hand in the process and shooting her in the head.
Latch turned to run.
The man grabbed a saw blade and launched at him, tearing through latch's ankle, sending him tumbling to the ground. His Screaming out in pain was short lived as the man came atop him and put a bullet in his head.
Before, narrowly dodging to the side to escape more buckshot, taking cover behind some old printers.
Only Juno was left.
"I'LL KILL YOU, YOU BASTARD!" Juno shouted in rage.
"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU'VE DON-" Only to be cut off as the man, quickly pooped out of cover and put a well aimed bullet in the mans head, sending him sprawling to the floor dead.
Then there was silence.
The man stood in the middle of the carnage. between five broken, limp bodies.
His hands were shaking. Not from fear and adrenaline, but something else.
He looked down at his hands. Metal fingers streaked with blood, still trembling slightly. During that sequence his heart rate had barely elevated and his breathing was no less ragged then when he was lying trapped under the sign.
His mind was shaken, not from the carnage, but from the ease of it all. Every move felt natural, every kill calculated and efficient.
His body moved as if it wasn't his own.
It was like he hadn't even been there.
...
And then-
then pain.
A massive headache, as if he was hit by a freight train struck, sending him to his knees with his hands on his head. Static filled his ears and the world around became inverted and blurry.
Flashes of memory shot through his mind. Gunfire. Screams. Orders yelled. Mercies begged.
The pain began to subside. he slumped down into a sitting position. Ragged, and covered in sweat.
Then it came.
Bright red holographic words filled his vision.
[STAND BY FOR MISSION UPDATE]