The gauntlet stayed frozen in Rush’s hand for only a few seconds. He shoved the armor back into his satchel and tied it shut, as if a tight enough knot could somehow hide the secret once again.

  “How do you know about that?’ Giza demanded. “Who told you?”

  “A lot of people,” Dame said. “It’s all anybody’s been talking about since I got back. This guy really killed five mechs?”

  Five. Rush looked at the ground, deep in thought. That meant people even knew about his fight with the railgun mech and the rusted mech, battles that had happened only a few weeks ago. Travel across the Rust Wastes took a long time, long enough that Rush had no idea how a story about his battles had beaten them back to the Hub.

  Unless a communication device was involved. Hartwell still had the one they’d found hidden on Arthur’s body. That gave a plausible “how” at least, though it did nothing to answer “why”, nor did it explain who Arthur had been contacting at all.

  “Oh god,” Giza mumbled. “Does everyone know?”

  “Everyone who’s been to the Hub in the past week or so, at least. Maybe longer,” Dame said. “Junkers, bandits, I even heard some of the guards talking about it.”

  “The guards- the guards,” Giza repeated. “Rush, get up. We need to go somewhere. The cantina. That’s where the most guards are.”

  The production line they stood near was well-guarded, but all of the guards were occupied monitoring the intake process for scrap, keeping an eye on Junkers in the decon shower, and other tasks. There were even more guards at the cantina, and most of them had nothing to do but stand around and scare people out of trying to steal food.

  “Do you think they’ll know where the stories started?”

  “No, I think they’ll stop anyone from trying to do something about the stories,” Giza said. Violence was nominally illegal in Hub City and the surrounding wastes, but the guards barely cared about the fights they could see, much less the ones they couldn’t. If one of the bandits got the bright idea to ambush Rush while he was outside of the suit…

  Giza grabbed Rush by the hand and helped him to his feet, then made a beeline for the cantina, making sure to stick to well populated open spaces as she did so. Notre Dame matched them every step of the way.

  “You know, I’m waiting for the part where you say ‘No, Dame, that’s just a stupid rumor, now shut up and kiss me’,” Dame said, with a nervous chuckle.

  “It’s true, though,” Rush said. “The mech-killing part. I don’t know if Giza wants to kiss you.”

  “Rush!”

  “He already knows about the suit,” Rush said.

  “I meant the other thing,” Giza grunted. “We have more important things to focus on.”

  “So it’s true then,” Dame said. “All of it? You’ve really got some armor that can kill mechs?”

  “Yes,” Giza said. “And as you can imagine, some people might be very mad about that, so shut up and get somewhere the guards can pay attention to us.”

  Giza kept moving at a rapid pace, crossing the city until she was nearly breathless. Dame fell even further behind, stumbling at the rear and gasping for breath. Rush ended up in the lead by virtue of being the only one not out of breath.

  “Are you two okay?”

  “Fine,” Giza grunted. They didn’t do a lot of jogging in the clan.

  “I’m good,” Dame said, though he audibly gasped as he spoke. “I just- go, get moving.”

  “Come on, Dame, how are you going to impress me if you can’t keep up?”

  Unfortunately for everyone involved, impressing Giza had been the last thing on Dame’s mind (for once). He had been more focused on keeping her safe. There were five men making no attempt to hide their pursuit, though Dame was the first one to spot them, and spot them closing the distance. As the straggler, Dame was also the first one to find himself in the jaws of the predator.

  “What’s the hurry?” One of the pursuers said, as he snatched Dame by the collar. “Running from something?”

  “Just getting food,” Dame said. He was out of breath, but never out of bullshit. “We’re hungry. Want some soup.”

  “Yeah. We just want some food,” Giza said. “We’ve already offloaded all our scrap, we don’t have anything on us.”

  “Oh, come on, we both know that’s not true. This kid’s clanking his way through the city like a bag of bolts.”

  One of the hunters grabbed Rush by the shoulder. He pulled away, but found himself backing into another one of the five, who tore open Rush’s pack and pulled out the armored gauntlet.

  “That’s mine,” Rush protested. The thief couldn’t care less.

  “Hey, look at that, stories are true,” the thief said. He toyed with the gauntlet, moving the armored fingers and prodding the compartment the power saw retracted into. “I thought there was more to it.”

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  “It’s mine,” Rush snapped once again. “Give it back.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “It won’t even work for you,” Rush said. “Give it back to me.”

  “Oh it’ll work for me just fine,” the thief said, as he crammed a meaty hand into the too-small gauntlet. “Here, watch.”

  The gauntlet didn’t fit on his oversized fist, but it didn’t need to be a perfect fit to punch Rush in the face. The heavy metal knuckles cracked across his jaw and knocked him to the ground.

  “Rush!”

  Any bystanders left cleared out at the first sign of violence. Giza’s hopes that a crowd would compel protection from some Junker code of honor vanished along with the crowd. By the time the attackers had thrown Giza and Dame to the ground, nobody was even around to watch. The thief who had stolen the gauntlet followed Rush to the ground and pinned an armored hand around his throat.

  “How do you get the saw to work?” He mused, even as he strangled Rush. “Is there a button you press, or what?”

  Rush only managed to choke out the phrase “That’s mine” one more time.

  “You’ve said,” the thief said. “Come on, tell me how the saw works and I’ll use it on you. Lot faster than the alternative. Easier that way.”

  “Get it over with and get moving, we need to get this done before any guards get off their asses,” one of the other attackers said. “Same with the other boy. We’ll find somewhere private for her.”

  “No! No! Get off me,” Giza screamed. She got one leg free and kicked and kneed at the ribs of the man pinning her down, but he barely flinched.

  “Hey we should take her to Drago,” someone else suggested. “We could get paid and take first crack at her.”

  “Not worth pissing off Graham,” the gauntlet thief said. He looked up and away from Rush. “Just have-”

  With the thief’s attention briefly diverted, Rush threw his hand up and grabbed at the man’s face. His palm caught the edge of the thief’s cheek, and his thumb brushed across an eyebrow and curved its way towards the socket.

  “That’s my friend.”

  The thief let out a howling shriek of pain as Rush jammed his thumb as deep into their eye socket as he could. The armored grip that choked him tightened briefly and then came loose as the thief rolled away, trailing blood from his face all the while. Rush pulled his hand back and looked at a palm covered in blood, and something else. His hand ran with streaks of red and with rivulets of a clear, glassy fluid. The crushed remnants of a human eye.

  “My eye,” the thief howled. “Fucking bastard, my eye!”

  Rush stopped looking at his viscera-covered palm and rolled over towards the thief. He pulled the gauntlet off the spasming thief and slammed it on to his own bloody hand. He stood, powerless gauntlet at the ready, to face off with the remaining four attackers.

  Two each had been pinning down Giza and Dame, and with a quick nod between the pairs, one each stood to square off with Rush. Dame seized on the moment of transition and managed to pry himself loose. Giza almost managed her own escape, but the attacker caught her by the throat at the last minute before she was fully free. Still held by the neck, she at least managed to punch him in the face, if not hard enough to shake him off. Dame was also fighting a losing battle. Even though he was free, the bandit was still larger and stronger than the teenager.

  “Put the gauntlet down, kid. You’re only making this worse.”

  “Let them go,” Rush said. “And leave us alone.”

  “Or what?”

  Rush bit his tongue. The gauntlet didn’t have its Kell Cell attached, but there was a small battery installed in that part of the armor, for better power distribution. If it held any reserve power-

  The power saw jolted out of the gauntlet, jagged edge glinting in the perpetual sunlight of Scrapworld. The rotating blade revved once, filling the air with a low but unmistakable roar. It was a quick display, as what little power remained in the gauntlet ran dry. Thankfully, it was enough. The prospect of being chainsawed to death was enough to cow even the most aggressive bandits.

  “Alright, alright,” the attacker said. The man holding on to Giza let her go instantly. “We’re backing off, we’re done.”

  The four bandits capable of standing on their own took a few steps back. Rush glanced down at the bandit still rolling on the ground, bemoaning his gouged eye, and figured he was no threat.

  “Run,” Rush snapped. “Now.”

  “We’re leaving, we’re leaving,” the apparent lead bandit said. “But that guy-”

  The air rang with a thunderous crack, and the bandit’s head burst into a cloud of mist. The bandit directly behind him had enough time to let out half a gasp of shock before his shoulder detonated into a red burst, leaving what was left of his arm and torso to fall to the ground separately. The two bandits left turned and started to run, and Rush got to watch in real time as they too were struck, and shards of their spines flew through the air. A small contingent of guards led by the unfortunately familiar Trooper Cordell paced down the empty street, rifles held high.

  “Is that all of them?”

  “Orders were to eliminate everyone but the two Junkers,” Cordell said. He scanned the trio of shellshocked teens. “I count three.”

  His rifle turned towards Dame. Giza threw herself between the two before Cordell’s finger reached the trigger.

  “No no no no,” Giza screamed. “He’s our friend!”

  Cordell’s finger stayed on the trigger. He examined Giza’s desperate expression, and rolled his eyes. Getting trigger-happy would only make Howle mad.

  “Fine. Stand down.”

  “Sir. What about the one on the ground?”

  The bloody-faced thief had ceased his writhing and was now struggling to get himself off the ground and run. Lightheaded from terror and blood loss, the thief barely got to his knees before collapsing again. Cordell watched him struggle and then turned back to Giza.

  “I don’t suppose that one’s your friend too?”

  “No,” Giza mumbled.

  Cordell walked over to the bandit and kicked him hard enough to flip him over. Cordell examined the thief with a look of disdain that turned to faint satisfaction as he saw the bloody injury on their face.

  “Please,” the bandit pleaded. “Help me.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, we have an established procedure for injuries like this,” Cordell said.

  With slow, deliberate movements, Cordell aimed his rifle down and held the barrel in front of the thief’s intact eye -and held it there. Giza counted out ten seconds. Ten long, agonizing seconds, with Cordell’s finger held firmly on the trigger, doing nothing but looking into the single eye of the man he was about to kill. Then Cordell pulled the trigger and watched the thief’s head turn to pulp. He didn’t blink.

  “Taken care of,” Cordell said, with audible satisfaction. “Now: you.”

  Cordell turned to Notre Dame, and Giza instinctively put herself between the two again.

  “Calm down,” Cordell sighed. “Clear out, kid. Commander Howle wants a word with these two.”

  “I, uh...you alright, Giza?”

  “I’m fine,” Giza said. She was a little bruised, maybe, but more emotionally scarred than physically.

  “Good. Rush?”

  “I’m a little sore,” Rush said.

  “You’ll live,” Cordell grunted.

  “I could, uh, follow behind,” Dame suggested. “Wait for you outside.”

  “No,” Cordell said flatly.

  “Go find my dad,” Giza said. “Tell him everything’s fine. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  With what was left of his chivalry satisfied, Dame bowed out and limped down the streets, away from the soldiers with guns that were enclosing Giza and Rush. Cordell closed the ranks around them and then turned towards the city’s center.

  “Come on now. Let’s not keep the commander waiting.”