As if the situation set them in a duck and turn combat, Sovereign and the group of armed goons kept each other in a 10 ,ongoing, minutes stalemate of bullet exchanges. “Gusts of ever swaying polite shootings.”

  Syna-” Wonderfully put Reign, I think you’re getting better at poetically describing stuff.” Under the serenade of cracked rocks, the hacker kept on trying to open their digital defensive measures, in hopes of counter infiltrating the mysterious operation. But she was slower than usual, and as Priya noticed, the redhead made a few uncharacteristic mistakes.

  Priya- “ If you’re tired, I can take over for both of us. I think we’ve already passed their toughest shield anyway.”

  Syna- “ No, it’s nothing. My mind’s just a bit hazy, that’s all”, she then stopped right in the middle of her excuse. A light heat on her ears made her aware of how the two bore into her with their gazes. “ From all the noise. In case you aren’t hearing it.”

  Right then, Sovereign swung its Gatling gun in a spray that bought them a few more seconds of frightened ducked bodies.

  Priya- “...If you say so. But I think you’re full of shit.”

  Syna-” Oh c’mon, it’s-”

  Sovereign- “ I do agree with Priya. You are spewing wasteful lies.”

  Unsure of what she should even say, the hacker put on her war pout and dived further into work.

  On another route, an overly excited woman sprinted with her hair blowing behind her, while bullets, rocks and stretching prosthetics tried with desperation to capture her eerily dash of joy. While the attackers yelled in a spur of the moment, the bodyguard’s manic laugh overpowered their noise.

  In just a few strikes, paralyzing baton hits and copious amounts of boots to the face, she managed to chip at their spirits as many of them thought that some kind of evil spirit had risen from the ground and was prepared to curse their entire operation.

  -” A DEMON!”yelled a woman before dropping her gun and turning around in fear. Soon after, two others joined her before a large, tree trunk of an arm pushed them around. A two meter human with a visor instead of eyes and long cables instead of hair blocked their only exit.

  -” Not a demon, you idiots, that’s a Zin”, growled the giant through his clenched teeth.

  -” And the difference is?”, quipped the woman.

  -” A demon can’t be fished out like barrels”, he replied, confusing the runners even more. “ Of for fuck sake- Just watch!”, he growled before throwing a grenade to Milena’s left, and while she evaded to the right, an enormous, electric net flew directly into her landing spot.

  -” You caught her”, celebrated the dissidents, a bit earlier than it was politely accepted. Melina extended her baton and with the press of a button, it became thinner and thinner, until its sides were slim enough to cut a hovering piece of paper.

  Melina- “ Hey!”, she bellowed to the 2 meter door block. “ Do that again and I’ll give you reasons to replace your legs with prosthetics as well.” A threat which the man didn’t appreciate. He lunged with his hands wide open, hoping to catch her by surprise and shock her with the stingers in his fingers.

  -” Never stood a chance, missy”, he thought while a counter punch was untangling his crossed wires in his stomach, and a perfectly straight upper kick rattled his brain into unconsciousness.

  Melina stared at the blanked faced man with a moment of joy, followed soon by a disturbing realization. “ Was this guy important?”, she asked the cowering soldier.

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  -” He was our captain”, quickly answered the frightened woman.

  Melina- “ And you’re just peons, right?”, to which all nodded in unison. “ Fuck…Ok, while I frisk him I want the rest to chirp everything you know about “, she said, twirling her hands around- “ all of this.”

  ….

  Sidelong glances and daggers, that’s all the captives had for the bodyguard; except for one, a man whose face seemed like it beat the bottom of a barrel and was looking for the next one. A champion. This time, though, his mug was focused: he blinked and squinted until he accepted that his faulty memory didn’t play tricks on him. “ Wait a second, I know you.”

  Melina- “ Guessing everyone from the Commune knows-”

  Thug- “ You’re the one who executed my niece!”

  Just like that, a paralyzing shiver trapped the bodyguard in her own body. She no longer felt any control over her words, the whirling in her stomach or how to not make her eyes not get so wide. It took a couple of gulpings before she could rein her dry mouth to speak once again.

  Melina- “ I…don’t deny that I could be one responsabile.”

  The man, now fired up and filled with more courage than whatever a bottle of liquor could whip up in him, fired a hate filled spit in her direction. “ Fucking piece of shit! Poor girl was just scrounging garbage because she couldn’t get another job in time. You asholes made her an unemployed in fucking days.“

  Melina- “ That’s”, the girl staggers. “ The rules said-”, she blurted without thinking.

  Thug- “ Shut the fuck up with your bullshit! Replaced her with a clone. In a snap. 10 years she gave that clinic.” The man was raving now to anyone, and everything, slowly remembering the daily truth of thousands from the Commune. “The clones were supposed to just pick up the pace, not fucking bring the brink of starvation . But then more and more laws, and rules and “indications” made it so that even trying to live was a burden!”

  One of his colleagues tried to shush him up, but the man was too red in face and he held too much wrapped in him that now it was just flooding out.

  Meline- “ There’s…nothing I can say besides trying to make amends for the rest of my life. Still, if you truly hate the Commune that much, why are you helping them disrupt the Playground? I mean…”

  Thug- “ You probably haven’t noticed, but each day, more and more rules have started to appear here as well. Some make sense, others never get explained. We’ve already known what it’s like living under CEO’s, why wait until this new batch screws us over?”

  Melina- “ New batch? You mean Savan and the council? What makes you think they’re going to-”

  The man, for the first time, found something worth laughing about. Long and demented, wide and worthy of an echo- “ I don’t know? Let’s say, maybe, a reason could be that the second they got their hands on a pair of Zins, they deployed them as their new attack dogs? Ain’t that right, little miss Melina Zin?”

  Spurred by their man’ spirit, the others joined him in the furious rain of spits and insults, making Melina feel smaller and smaller, and her eyes bigger and less stable.

  -”It’s fine, you went through this everyday since you got out of the cell. It’s fine, it’s normal for them to hate you like that. It’s deserved.”, thought the girl while the cave shrinked more and more.

  -” Wait”, cried out a voice from the back of the crowd. “ You’re making the little Zin sad, everyone. What’s going to be, dog, you gonna cry or something? Make us feel sad about an executioner?”

  Her quiet demeanor made them believe that she was crumbling, but in truth, she was following a pair of advice from Vivar and surprisingly, Angie. Melina found that her best way to deal with a rightfully vicious crowd is to let their grievances take voice.

  Angie- ” If you ever feel like they’re in the right, there’s no shield that could defend you from their justified scorn. And if you feel that way, then you’re already a better person than the one they’re angry at. ”

  Vivar- “ You must understand that they are in the right. Besides your own beating heart, it’s the least you can offer them.”

  For the next 20 minutes, the crowd and their spouts of anger weighed like a boulder on Melina’s shoulders, who stood and let them vent everything they had. “ Arrested my good buddy Chuck!”, or “ your boss made me a bottom level and homeless!” were among the last few briefs the group held on to before starting to get outwinded.

  Melina- “ All you said is true”, she said after most of them started to pant from exhaustion. “ Except for the guys from the council. They’re not on the same runaway as the Commune’s leadership.”

  Thug- “ Oh please, of course you’d think that since you have basically the same rights as before. You can kick people, for the law; you can arrest people, because you’re the ‘law’; a fucking CEO is in cahoots with the council.”

  Melina- “ We’re both also prisoners. If anything, the Council uses us for the betterment of the Playground. Do you think the network could be so easily build-”

  Thug- “ Who cares about some stupid spider cable when our houses are 50% mud? You might not know, but there are longer lines for prosthetic maintenance than we had in the old city. And shitier. “

  Melina- “ Well, I think it might be because there are fewer docmechs…and the ones we have are overworked?”

  Thug- “ There's an entire village of clones; just hidden somewhere, that could easily be put to work. Why are wasting good resou-”

  Melina finally found the first reason for a nerve to pop. “ So were you in the Commune”, she hissed close to the man’s face. “ I do think you’re right to be suspicious of the Council. But doing this” , she gestured around- “ Looks like the last step in your rightful suspicions. Why jump right to it?”

  A stubble got the thug bereft of swears or spits. “ I…I…”, he then lifted his head and instead of a rebellious eye, he now just looked tired. “...Why should we trust anyone in power anymore? Why not put up a last act and be done with everything already?”

  Milena- “...I see.” She then picked herself off the ground. “ I seriously hope you’ll find a better tomorrow.” Without any other words to part, she turned away from them and further down the passageway.