Abek stared down into the pool of light from the kid’s beam. In the mud there was what he exactly hadn’t hoped to find. Especially not in wet, muddy, and likely recently walked upon flooring. A set of large boot prints. Then, further on, more, and then a lot more.

“We’d better get out of here,’ he warned his partner. Recent footprints meant recent visitors to the city ruins other than them. And people could be as easily as dangerous as mechs, granted in different ways, but still deadly.

“They might know something about this place,” Kel offered, “Something that we can trade for.”

Goa shook his head.

“Not in my experience buddy,” he warned. “The only thing in the south we greggas try to stay away from as much the mechs is people we don’t know.”

If they were greggas, then there was the matter of the two of them risking being caught in another group’s claimed territory. Violence and death was often the result. Even though the area was vast, plenty of greggas weren’t too keen on strangers wandering around their turf. Theft was one fear, but there were worse things a stranger could do to you.

On the other hand, there was also the risk of finding people who had dared put down roots in mech territory. As tough as it was in the settlements above the Iceline, down here was much worse. Anyone who dared live in a place like this, to spend years here, would not be any kind of civilized. Goa had encountered such people, if you could call them that. They weren’t pleasant to behold, and they tended to do things not even the most sadistic of greggas would consider.

He waggled a finger at the kid.

“In the north its better, there are towns and there are families, there are communities. Here, nothing like that. This is the place of fear. You ought to remember that. Continuous fear makes people act crazy – go crazy – and think they can do anything. And most of that isn’t so good.”

“But if there is anyone around here,” Kel reasoned. “Then they might know where the tech we’re looking for. We might be able to help them.”

Goa gave him a sideways glance, grimaced.

“A few hours ago you were telling me this was a bad place,” he offered. “And now you want to hang around, when you know there might be natives here?”

“Just for a while,” the kid told him. “If they don’t find us, we won’t have anything to worry about, will we?”

Abek shook his head, but he could understand Kel’s reaction. He also didn’t want to have come all this way to pack up and leave with nothing.

Once they had pried open the exit and were outside once more, a hundred meters or so from the building they had been inside, he urged Kel to be careful. There was still likely plenty of tech to locate, but they needed to avoid any people they saw at all costs.

The veteran gregga did two things to prepare himself. He pulled out his big double barreled slug thrower from its holster beneath his pack. And he also began laying his little black eggs. Small things really, but treasured, with enough powder and the pinch of tril needed to blow back a concrete wall, get some attention. He carefully noted their location for his journey back. They had timers, after all. And if someone got him, he’d have their explosions to suggest there were mechs sniffing around.

Abek Goa knew a thing or two about fear. Anyone in the south would be at least as paranoid about mechs as they were people. And the mechs did like blowing things up.

He’d used the cylinders, small enough to hide just about anywhere, a number of times. And they had saved his life at least three times. Sure, might lose a gram or to of tril, but the bonus would be he’d have something to hold over the locals, something he could use to manipulate them. And what Kel didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Quite the opposite, really.