Hive III Read Free Page A

a half-dozen others. Another survivor nearby picks up on the commotion and follows suit. They're heading our way, a handful of new stragglers swelling their ranks by the time Ret raises his shotgun. “Looks like things are about to get sloppy.”
    “ Don't hurt them,” I say. How can I possibly blame these people, after what they've gone through? If the tables were turned, I’d probably be leading the charge. I'm a monster. On the outside, at the very least, and perhaps shortly on the inside too. Sneak’s tapping a finger on the hilt of one of her twin blades and I know for a fact if they get too close – even wielding makeshift weapons – she won't hesitate to kill them all. She would lay down her life trying to protect me. I spot an intersecting street and we turn down it. The detour will add a few minutes to the journey, but it isn't worth risking any more bloodshed.
    The mob is far behind when we make it back to the workshop and the sound of hammering. “They should be burying the dead,” Bron says. “Instead of making trouble for the rest of us, who risked our skins trying to stop Skuld.”
    Oleg’s staring into his hands as though he were reading something terrible etched into the grooves of his flesh. “Sotercity’s been reduced to a mob of lowly Grinders.” The elitist old bastard looks positively beside himself. I'm the one that crowd would hang from the city walls, not them. Shouldn’t I be the one in despair? If anyone ever needed more proof the world's a screwed up place, this is it.
    The h ammering stops and Dhal glances up from a pair of gleaming metal arms he's got laid out before him. The kid’s face is a patchwork of grease stains and sweat. These new arms are bigger than Bron’s broken ones, and a universe apart from the comical looking spatulas he's wearing now. Not surprisingly, the big guy looks positively elated.
    He nods in their direction “F or me?”
    Oh boy, now he’s a child opening gifts on the Winter Solstice.
    “They were meant for the son of a high-ranking Keeper,” Dhal says. “Only other pair in existence.” The kid says, nodding to what remains of Bron’s shattered arms beside him. “I salvaged as much as I could from the old units, but you have to understand, they were so badly damaged…” Bron’s only half listening. Details like how and why roll off of him like water off a feathered back. “Get these things off me, would ya?” he snaps.
    Dhal shrugs and begins loosening the bolts to remove the makeshift arms. The boy pauses and winks at me. “You know,” he says pensively. “Maybe I shouldn't, I mean, I could get in a lot of trouble giving these away. That Keeper paid a lot of money for these arms.”
    “Never mind any of that,” Bron barks. “That crusty old Keeper and his snot-nosed kid are either dead or new members of Skuld’s new shitbag army. Get moving.”
     
    It takes Dhal nearly 30 minutes to make the final attachment of Bron’s new and improved killing machines. The big guy stands and holds one in the air, rotating his wrist, flexing the fingers into a fist. He almost reminds me of a woman trying on the new pair of gloves.
    “ Whaddyathink?” he asks, knowing full well they’re an impressive spectacle by any measure. He snatches a three inch metal bar off the workbench and bends it as easily as a child might bend a piece of tall grass.
    “They’re certainly shiny,” I tell him.
    R et’s shaking his head. “Zees’ll see us coming from miles away now.”
    “ So, you like them then?” Dhal asks and despite the boy’s phenomenal expertise, his adolescent insecurities are hard to ignore.
    “ Like them?” Bron bellows, snatching those flimsy temporary arms and crumpling them into a mangled ball of steel. “I'd marry them, if I could.”
    Dhal smiles. “Wait till you see what else they can do. I know you recently lost your demolitions expert, Jinx, so I've added a 40mm grenade launcher to your left arm.” Dhal holds up what looks