We begin prepping for the movement to come. I was making sure I had all the necessary equipment to continue, and decided to eat one of the smaller nutrient blocks I had left. It tastes like dry ash, but it keeps you running at least.

  The kid shook himself awake for the third time, and took to eating his own nutrient block. After which he expressed a clear disgust after taking a bite, no words needed. It's expected, most dens at least give people the privilege of having it melted- makes it easier to swallow.

  I sling my pack over my back and the kid quickly does the same. We check around the place one last time for any sort of useful items or equipment, but I purposefully left the beacon place unchecked. Just when I was looking to the way out, the kid managed to find the compartment.

  He dragged out the beacon carelessly, almost managing to drop it before examining it. He fiddled with it for a couple of seconds before he noticed me gazing at him.

  "What is this?" Kip asked,

  "It's a beacon, and you should put it back." I dismissively reply,

  "So is it yours?" Kip annoyingly asked,

  He waved it around for a moment.

  "No, it isn't. But, you don't need to worry about it." I reassuringly answer,

  "That doesn't fill me with confidence." Kip replied,

  "If you don't have confidence in me, then it'll get you killed." I comment,

  I pat him on the back before taking the beacon and tossing it back into the compartment he has taken it out of. I slam the panel shut, out of sight, out of mind.

  "Come on. Let's go, we have a long way ahead." I say,

  "Do you know who's beacon it is?" Kip irritatingly questioned,

  "We just have to hope they aren't a problem, or in our way, but it'll be fine. Beacons are standard practice for scrappers." I calmly explain,

  We squeeze through the tunnel-way out into the main corridor again. We began making our way back up to the intersection, with the slow dripping of acid through tunnel cracks.

  "So if it's a scrapper we have nothing to worry about. A scrapper wouldn't try to kill us right?" Kip cautiously questioned,

  "Not quite kid. Knowing it's a scrapper just means we know how to kill them, if they decide to get trigger happy. Not all scrappers do things like me; I'm probably in the minority." I answer,

  "So some scrappers would just kill you?" Kip anxiously asked,

  "That's why whenever you meet someone outside a den, you point your weapon at them, no exceptions. None." I sternly reply,

  We made our way up north to an much more collapsed area of the tunnel, not particularly dangerous, or a-typical, but a consideration nonetheless.

  It's these portions of tunnelling which you find the most scrap in mainly, otherwise bodies- crushed by falling debris, or it's a way of this place telling you to take a detour elsewhere. Regardless, we slowly made our way through collapsed concrete and hanging wiring.

  As we made our way further it was clear there was a hard leakage of acid in this area, with black sludge leaking in clumps down the sides of the walls. There was a large increase of leakage of acidic liquid dropping through panel cracks above us to a t-section.

  It's originally a t-section, but one of the ways were completely collapsed, leaving us only one actual direction. There was a small crack which led all the way through to the other side, and I had the bright idea to look down it just in case.

  On immediate notice, something darted out of the way of the hole, leaving a distant humming noise with its movements. That's not good.

  "What'd you see?" Kip asked,

  He had continued further down the t-sections only available path, but had finally noticed I had stopped in my tracks.

  "Floaters probably, be ready for anything." I dismissively answer,

  We continue down the section until reaching a long sequence of doors which had broken signage above many of them.

  "What's a floater?" Kip asked,

  I began working on prying apart one of the doors in the corridor. All the locking mechanisms down this hall had long rotted due to the breach of acid into these tunnels.

  "A smaller rust-bucket, specifically; they fly. Is your oxygen flowing fine?" I reply,

  "I can breathe just fine. I know how to breathe in air." Kip bashfully replied,

  I shake my head in a slight amusement before managing to get the door to slide open into the room. It opened with a horrific screech, made me worried something might've heard it.

  Inside the room there were a collection of metal tables which were slowly rotting away, many of them missing large portions of their surface, and one in particular melted by a slow drip of acid from the ceiling. I push over a table in the way of the doorway to get past it.

  There were chairs and stools in various states of disrepair, but besides that most of the other surfaces seemed fairly intact. There was a counter which stretched across the back of the room, we make our way over to it and hope over the counter.

  There was shelving devoid of anything, just dust and rust, the usual you find in open rooms like this. You find the good stuff in the collapsed, forgotten areas of this place. There was a door to the left of the shelves which I began to pry open again.

  In the middle of my process the kid decided to pull against my pack, I look behind and he was pointing at something, but I saw nothing.

  "I saw something go past the doorway." Kip nervously whispered,

  "If you think something is there, point your weapon at it kid, let me open this door." I sternly reply,

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  The kid shakily pulls his weapon from his holster and aimed it at the door, using the counter to brace himself.

  "You got it?" Kip annoyingly asked,

  "Be patience kid, if it were a race we'd be dead." I reply,

  "I doubt whatever back there is patient." Kip countered,

  I look back at him for a second, there's other tells to a rust-bucket than just some sounds, but he'll learn eventually.

  "Pulse guns have no recoil, if that's what you're bracing for." I smugly say,

  I manage to break open the door, and we quickly make our way through into the section which was cut off by the collapsed tunnel.

  From there the tunnels went up via a staircase, which was missing most of the steps to actually get us up there. There was a slow influx of mist coming from there, so clearly it led upward to the surface- or well it was likely it did.

  We make our way over of which we had two choices to choose from to make our way up, there was an elevator shaft, no elevator; which had hanging cabling which could possibly carry us, so we could climb up. The kid most definitely- me? Probably not.

  The other option was the staircase, which I had an apparatus we could use which would be safer in general, so I instinctively went for the easier option. If I was alone, or just younger, I would have probably climbed the cabling. But I'm not that stupid anymore, luckily.

  We make our way over to the melted staircase and I take out a cable from the side of my mag-pack, which I then attach to a hook implement I take from the other side.

  "So kid. Are you any good at climbing? Because you're going to be doing a lot of it." I humorously say,

  "Obviously, I can climb." Kip confidently replied,

  I toss the newly made grappling hook up high to an upper platform of the staircase, the hook wraps around the flimsy railing and a hard tug is enough to prove it to me.

  "Well then, you're up." I slyly say,

  "Alright." Kip nervously said,

  He begins to attempt to make his way up the cable, clearly struggling as he inched is way to the halfway point in only about 20 seconds. He's faster than I expected with all the gear.

  "Why'd you stop?" I ask,

  "Just give me a second- how are you meant to get up here?" Kip hurriedly asked,

  He was huffing already, stamina is something that you have to work on as a scrapper, otherwise you'll just die.

  "Don't worry about me kid, only yourself, I'll figure it out." I reply,

  "It's kind of hard- not to worry about the person who knows where they're going." Kip commented,

  The kid finally made his way up the top and would clumsily throw himself over the railing and onto the platform, it shook slightly on his arrival.

  "Alright! I made it!" Kip loudly proclaimed,

  "Look up kid." I dismissively state,

  "Huh? Oh... shit." Kip dreadfully replied,

  Above him was about several more platforms disconnected from each other that would need to be scaled in a similar way, though most the stairway up was intact luckily.

  I scale my way up by using my leftover arm and legs to wrap around the cable, relying only one my one actual hand to drag myself up the cable. Not the worst condition I've been in doing this.

  "How are you so fast?" Kip asked,

  "I've done this a lot. Put some more effort in and you'll be faster" I bluntly respond,

  "I don't know if I have more to give." Kip murmured

  I drag myself up and grab onto the railing which tilted at the sudden added weight, but it managed to hold on for me to throw myself over the top onto the platform.

  Eventually, and after a long amount of climbing, we made it up to the top of the staircase. From which there was only one way forward deeper into the surface. This area was particularly melted, with puddles of sludge running across the floor.

  The buildings looked like they were sliding sideways and there was a considerable amount of collapsed material which made handy platforms to avoid the acidic sludge. From there we moved onward across to a section which had large piles of rotting metal.

  These are just metal graveyards, nothing of value, nothing of consequence. Little use for scrappers, but I'm sure rust-buckets could find good use for large plates of metal. Regardless, we stopped here for a reason; it's considerably open.

  With an open sky we can see precisely what's been floating about, if it decides to show itself even for a moment: my weapon is ready to end it.

  "I hear a humming sound. Is this the floater you were talking about?" Kip half-whispered,

  The kid pulls out the pulse gun- good, his survival instincts are improving. There was a low hum slowly banking around us, it's keeping distance; but why?

  "Stay ready. Wait for the right moment." I strictly reply,

  "What moment? It's not even doing anything." Kip rudely asked,

  The hum banks around again, but there's a problem, shouldn't there be two? The kid saw something behind us, but the original one I saw was in the other tunnel section.

  Unless what he saw was something else, plausible, but unlikely. Something crucial is missing.

  The hum stops, I know where it is, off to the left near a building window. It's vision must be limited to optics, considering it was looking through a hole in the wall. Meaning, it's in line of sight.

  I fire, a thump of metal is heard, then the sound of metal crashing against metal. The hum stops.

  "Uh- I think you got it?" Kip confirmed,

  "Cheers for the confirmation. If a rust-bucket emits a noise, it means its not made for hunting, this one was a scout." I reply,

  We make our way over to the broken state of the rust-bucket. It was quite destroyed by the shot of the revolver, with nothing worth recovering, clearly.

  It was small, light, and agile. But it wasn't in a large grouping, meaning it's not in a swarm either, so it must be connected to another rust-bucket. But to just scout? What a waste. A rust-bucket wouldn't be so conservative with itself. Not one who was hunting.

  Rust-buckets use doors or other rust-buckets as distractions, traps, or some form of information guarantee. Using it to spy on a possible target is only plausible as long as we've already fallen for a trap, but we've gotten out of the tunnel and we're in the open. No trap to be seen.

  I don't usually like to think about it, but there is nothing that lines up with this besides one of those fuckers. An artificer, those who have dedicated themselves to a craft of controlling what kills us, the rust-buckets, but they're almost exclusively in a centre.

  I've even met a couple in previous gigs. Unfortunately they aren't talkative, or really anything remotely close to someone worth engaging with. That's the thing with cults, they're just so similar.

  "So are we going to take out the processor?" Kip stupidly asked,

  "Kid- look at it closely, and tell me where is the processor." I brutally reply,

  He looked up at me and then back down to the completely destroyed wreck of a rust-bucket.

  "Well- it's probably gone." Kip answered,

  "Correct. Now lets keep moving, and fast." I order,

  We begin to make our way past the massive piles of scrap before re-entering the more claustrophobic sections of barely breathable alley ways and tunnel ways.

  My plan was to go deeper into the city section, and eventually make our way out to the caravan way once we got rid of whatever else may have been following us. But, there was nothing to destroy, nothing to hear, nothing to see.

  In time the buildings became more intact, with only the usual disrepair coating the layers of concrete and metal in the alley ways. We reached a point where we could see a large lamp post which stretched halfway up but was cut off as its entire upper portion was melted away.

  We had reached the caravan way, a wide, empty section of the city which large amounts of caravans could easily drive down without issue. The road was in a horrific state, as most roads in the outskirts are; filled with holes, bumps, and debris.

  I allowed the kid to get a good look at the surrounding place, while I was debating if we should go left or right, in the end it might not even matter.

  "So where do we go from here?" Kip attentively asked,

  "Well I-" I began,

  I was interrupted by the sudden arrival of another drone, which swung around the corner, and I instinctively brought out my gun to shoot it.

  "Wait!" Kip quickly shouted,

  I stopped before I shot at it, and the drone stood still as if it was waiting for me to blow it apart. I looked down at the kid which he clearly interpreted as great disdain.

  "What the fuck is up with you kid?" I scold,

  "It's a different one, and it has no weapons- it's just looking at us. Don't you think you're wasting ammo?" Kip justified,

  "Then shoot it with your pulse gun." I bluntly reply,

  "I- I don't want to." Kip nervously countered,

  I stare at the kid for a second, and then the drone began moving slowly down the road. Was it attempting to lead us somewhere?

  "Did it blow off too much power or something?" I gruffly comment,

  "Looks like it wants us to follow it." Kip stated,

  "Well I guess that proves it." I bluntly state,

  "Proves what?" Kip innocently asked,

  "It's an artificer." I simply respond,

  An artificer out here can only mean trouble as far as I'm concerned.