Borderline Joke (8)
My head was boiling over, blood rushing like mad. I’d never had any implants done on my brain, but in this accelerated thinking speed, the flying grenade looked like it was crawling through the air in slow motion. This body—the pinnacle of human design and genetic engineering—was screaming that it was fucked.
If you’ve got time to bitch, then fucking move already, shit…!!
Screech! I twisted my ankle and hurled my body toward the driver’s seat with everything I had. No time to admire the grenade’s specs. I was about to experience them firsthand!
The mother and daughter’s eyes went wide as saucers watching me dive through the air.
Sorry, folks…! Brace yourselves—the ride’s about to get bumpy….
BOOM!!
“Guhk…?!”
“Sis…!!”
The impact flung my body like a ragdoll. A storm of shrapnel tore through everything in range, slamming into the hovercraft’s interior. The whole damn thing shook like it was caught in the blast… hell, it was caught, bucking wildly. I couldn’t get my bearings at all.
I tumbled and crashed into shit everywhere, but I couldn’t even feel the pain. A high-pitched reeee like war movie effects rang in my ears without end. My vision blurred, and I caught hazy afterimages of the panicked duo rushing over, flapping their mouths.
I wanted to tell them I was fine, but my chest felt tight like I’d choked on something, and all that came out were ragged gasps.
Fucking grenade! That shit packs a punch…!!
“Cough… cough! Hup… guhk….”
In the game, even a single combat cop droid couldn’t detonate one of these properly—it was total junk ammo. But its real power was beyond imagination. I’d seen a half-modded Seeker crush a heavy turret barrel like clay with one hand, yet I still pulled this insane stunt without thinking it through… I deserved the hurt. Hell, surviving was a miracle.
“Miss Anastasia! Breathe in slowly…!!”
“……Hup! Haah… haah…!!”
I sucked in air for dear life, but it felt like there wasn’t enough oxygen in the world… like the blast had vacuumed it all up.
I tried waving my head and hands to signal no need for the fuss, but…
Thud… grind!!
“Kuh…?!”
A black arm—fingers chopped off, clothes shredded, flesh gouged out like a tiger mauling, bones and implants exposed raw—scraped across the floor. It looked like a demon straight from hell.
I’d only been thrown by the shockwave, but this guy took it head-on and was still moving?
“Eee… ick…!!”
“Sis! Don’t move! You’re bleeding…!!”
Me and Mom desperately tried to stop her as she reached for the door open/close button up front.
……Bleeding? Something warm and sticky trickled near my forehead, but that wasn’t the issue—there was a Terminator fresh from a furnace behind you two!
“You… bitch… I’ll… kiiill… AAAAAAHHH—!!”
“!!”
Even with cheeks and tongue half-gone, leaking speech like a sieve, the raw malice and hate in his voice made every hair on my body stand on end.
The intruder’s face—most of his skull replaced with metal—stared in. Grenade shards still smoked from deep embeds all over him, yet he moved. Unreal.
……Fuck, just die already.
Beep!Crunch!!
My outstretched hand slammed the door shut. It perfectly caught the bastard’s waist as he half-crawled in, slicing him clean in half under the pressure.
Thud… clank. His lower body—now an ex-friend—hit the floor. The noise from the lone cyborg torso rolling around made the mother-daughter duo jump and huddle against me.
“……Haaa.”
For now… we were safe. As long as they lacked the firepower to punch through the hovercraft’s heavy armor or front reinforced glass, all that was left was piloting this mass weapon to mop up the stragglers.
……That was the plan.
Scrape.
The guy who’d collapsed like he was dead dragged his head across the floor. His eye sockets—empty voids of red and black, no trace of eyeballs—locked straight on us.
“I’ll… rip you… to shreads…!!”
His few remaining fingertips split open with a snick. What emerged… a gun barrel.
Oh, for fuck’s sake… that mod gets you banned from DMZs, you idiot…?
Tough bastard….
I whipped my wobbling body in front of the two ladies.
……It’s fine. No way that botched body mod could fire anything lethal. Cover vitals with my arm, and we’re good.
……But someone braver than me was hiding here.
“Leave Mom and Sis alone!”
“!! No…!”
A crude gunshot rang out. The little knight who’d bolted from the world’s coziest parental embrace took the devil’s lightning head-on.
Her limp body landed softly in my outstretched arms.
“Ah……?”
Her sparkling eyes were shut tight. Her chattering little mouth stilled forever.
Non-augmented humans drop easy and anticlimactically when vitals are pierced. I’d seen it a dozen times on the way here… but this didn’t feel real.
Sticky despair crawled up my legs. Unanswerable questions swirled in my head.
Why…? Why…? Wasn’t I the one changing this shitty future? Does fate bend back no matter what? Or… did I fuck up by taking off my jacket…? Saying dumb shit?
I dreaded turning my head. Better if she hated me. I’d take the hits meekly. Sorry… I’m sorry…. If a real heroic protagonist had come instead of a fake side-character like me—someone better, more thorough—maybe this wouldn’t have happened…!!
Clink. The bullet that snuffed her tiny life hit the floor. Piercing so cleanly, not a drop of blood on its pristine form—my dizzy mind plunged into deeper darkness….
“…Huh? Why doesn’t it hurt…?”
“?!”
“Mary…!!”
She cracked open her tightly shut eyes and mumbled something so absurd it was insane. Mom and I immediately apprehended the tomboy.
We stripped off the jacket in a frenzy, checked every inch—cyberware diagnostics confirmed: just facial bruising, nothing else.
The oversized bulletproof vest was too big, and Mary so light, the hem caught the shot to stage this farce…?
Spare me these corny, sunburn-level jokes, please. When do medical sensor cyberware get invented…?
Smack!! Smack…!
“Aaaaah!! Sorry, Mom!!”
“Apologize to Anastasia right now…! Look how scared she is—she can’t even stand…!!”
“I’m… I’m fine…. Yeah….”
My legs were jelly for real, but watching Mary get her calves spanked to hell drained my anger.
Maybe all the blood rushing to my head left me anemic.
Knock knock knock…!
“Oh. Gramps… you’re safe.”
While chaos reigned inside, the locals—who’d mopped up the outlaws—knocked on the floating vehicle’s door.
Schneider, looking a thousand times younger and milder than in the game. The mechanic geezer still clutching packed dinner. Faces and gear all over the place, but the vigilantes beamed with victory on the side cams.
Beep…. I figured open the door and rest a bit.
But soft arms slipped under my shoulders to support me.
Ha…. Guess I’m not destined to look cool anywhere.
I killed the engine, got helped down, and gently nudged the fidgety duo toward Schneider.
Now left with… the silent geezer and me.
His conflicted gaze scanned my body. A cautious hand brushed my hair, checked the forehead gash.
“……Rushed over, and… you’re really in one piece.”
“……And you, miss. Must’ve taken a nasty fall rushing here.”
Fitting talk for strangers. Too distant to voice worries aloud. Too close to ignore after all we’d been through.
His bitter look said refusing treatment would land me in the ICU.
……Gotta mooch just this once.
As I tried to stand—
“Hey!! Hacker girl! Where’s this kinda shit happen?! Treating someone else’s merch like trash! Dented armor… eek!! Inside’s a total wreck too! Got connections or credits to fix this? Huh??”
“…….”
The rat-faced junk shop boss—Wei Long—yapped at me like a maniac.
I’d come to help the mechanic, no thanks expected. Figured he’d gripe about me “borrowing” his sold goods again… but first words are a damage claim?
This little fucker.
“You son of a—fine. All~~ good. But then explain why a hovercraft you sold for pocket change—2k credits—to scrap without a trace was sitting pristine in your warehouse? Boss?”
“W-well, anyway! You wanted it handled clean, right?! I was just scouting a surefire scrap route! Don’t be unreasonable!!”
“…Unreasonable? Unreasonable?! Twisting words like a pro artist, huh?”
“Twisting’s what thieves like you do best! Credits! Gonna pay? Can you even afford it??”
Wow… this rat. I felt filthy just breathing his air. Better pay the scam fee and bail than stick around—his sleaze was contagious.
As I prepped payment, figuring cut losses… the locals and geezer’s faces were off. Past grumpy—volcanoes erupting.
……Heard rural folks are clannish—did I piss them off starting a pointless spat…?
Click!!
A still-steaming sniper rifle pressed to Rat-Head’s skull.
The perp? Schneider, looking more archdemon than that “sao su” guy, fury incarnate.
“Sch… Schneider, you mad?! What the hell?!”
“……Feels like I owe that girl a huge debt. And… hoarding a thousand times profit? That’s not business, it’s fraud, ain’t it…? Wei Long, sir…? Pay the fair price. Seems everyone agrees, rules or no.”
“……Thousand times?”
Feeling the metal grind and the bloodthirsty stares, the rat—suddenly forgetting his claim—offered full repairs and a fair hovercraft buyback.
……Earned citizenship cash on accident.