“Just fucking pull him!”
“I’m not going to feed Theta to that thing!”
There was a time when South would’ve bothered with a comeback. So you’ll feed us to it instead? But it’s been a long time since there was any point. She saw the writing on the wall back when he took Tex’s side.
North thinks she’s more reasonable these days. She just lets him talk. Fucking men. You just let them get on with their word vomit and they think they’re the shit.
“On your six!”
“Jesus fuck, North, you know how clocks work?”
“He’s so goddamn fast…”
Oh, she’s heard it all in her day. You watch each other’s back. You fight for goddamn family. You’ve only got each other. You bleed for blood.
Shit yeah she has. Sheds a little more of it right now as a stray bit of shrapnel wings her from the goddamn brute shot. What kind of insane fucker uses a rocket launcher for a close range weapon? And to think she always liked Maine’s style.
Who the fuck’s going to shed blood for her, that’s what she wants to know. Never you fucking mind; she’s got her answer to that. Had it ever since North white knighted himself all over Tex and York’s stupidass stunt back on the Mother of Invention. The answer is nobody. North’ll put out buckets of the red stuff for the team, for the cause, for motherfucking Theta. But his own goddamn twin sister? Yeah, she’s on her own.
“South!” Theta’s piercing scream is wrapped up with North’s. She swears and hurls herself face-first down a muddy bluff to dodge the monstrosity suddenly in her face. He’s too fast. Superhumanly fast.
They’re going to die here. She’s going to die here, and North is going to fucking die here and let her fucking die here for the sake of a computer chip with an anxiety problem, and what’s left of Maine is going to take what he wants anyway, and she fucking resigned from this shit, thank you.
She rolls to her feet at the bottom of the bluff, gun pointed at the enemy before her head even finishes turning, and stares up at the hulking white shape that used to be her teammate. She flipped on North years ago, as soon as they pulled themselves together after the crash. Family is for shit, blood doesn’t buy you loyalty, and when the one asshole who was supposedly genetically disposed to be on her side aimed guns in her face, goddamn if she wasn’t going to take her cue. If he wouldn’t have her back, he’d be her stepping stone to better things. And goddamn if she’s going to let a zombie Freelancer eat her brains for the sake of a covert nanny assignment for some overly chatty equipment.
But Maine isn’t moving. He’s staring down at her with the sun turning that gold dome into a solar flare, and so long as she doesn’t fire, he’s not going to come after her, is he? She’s out of his way. He wants the AI, and she doesn’t have one.
She doesn’t have a cocksucking AI, and it’s suddenly so funny that she chokes across their comm band trying not to laugh.
North makes some kind of sound of concern. In the second it takes her to blink the tears of discomfort from her eyes, Maine’s not in her line of sight anymore. He’s so goddamn fast. And all she has to do to get out of this alive is just take a deep slow breath before she shouts her warning.
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1WPEI3H