That didn’t matter though as my jaw shifted to the right this time, after a solid punch from the knife-wielder. That’s what you get for not paying attention.

I hit the ground solid as ever, it felt muggy and I didn’t like that I was sucker punched. I kicked myself up but was swept back down. I rolled to my right, knocking down the bastard with a kick to the chest, which sprayed him across a display of shirts, pants and ties. “Now you know how to tie a tie,” I added before leaving him in pieces.

I climbed up the side of the stall, and scrambled across the first roof, leaping. The scent here was faintly better than the rest of the market. But that was only barely.

Garbage was littered across the roofs. The black garbage bags that were littered here, were sealed, thankfully, well most of them. but that didd't stop the raw stench from fluttering into my nose. Hell, I even saw a few rats chewing their way into a bag or two.

Despite scaling two dozen roofs, my attempts to escape my pursuers were futile. The bastards had also climbed up top, However, I had the advantage.

The advantage of surprise.

“Two hundred meters left, Sir,” The AA said. Once I reached one hundred meters, I jumped from the roof, skidding across the ground and tumbling into another antique computer stall. I hit a batch of hard drives when I lost my footing.

Thankfully, I didn’t hit my side which was in excruciating pain. So I kept my momentum going and jumped over a coconut cart and two snow cone carts that were planted in the middle of the aisle.

The expletives I heard being spat by the vendors would have shamed my mother, but at that point, I was done with Underwent, or so I thought.

A boulder of a man crashed into me, sending me flying momentarily into a Juice stall. The gentle heat from the sign aroused my skin to a prickle and when it crashed into a batch of plastic bottles, I couldn’t help but feel grateful as my side didn’t absorb more pain.

I forced myself up, noticing the empty plastic bottles reading JUICE’TING, with various flavours: grapefruit, orange-banana and fruit punch. “I’d love to guzzle a fruit punch now,” I mused to myself.

The boulder-Hannya Boy was in midair when my senses finally returned. “I’ve had enough,” I said to myself. I tapped for my case, but it wasn’t in my hand anymore.

I probably dropped it on impact.

Now with the opportunity to shoot him in the face gone, I rolled to my right, barely getting out of the way. The thunderous stomp of this one left the floor shattered, like a crevice found in The Waste.

These Hannya Boys knew nothing, so I continued to teach. With venomous vigour and ire, I seethed my cybernetic arm through the air, slamming it into his side. I wasn’t done. I loosed two punches into his boots, sidestepped and clotheslined him, sending him spinning 480°.

I didn’t wait for him to land before I scampered through the shop to find my case. I knew my time was limited, but I sure as hell wasn’t leaving my pistol in Underwent.

I found it in an old fridge that stored a strainer, a miniature bottle capping machine and a tool kit.

“Eighty-Two Meters,” Nova said.

The urge to celebrate was there, but I ensured I kept my head in the game. I’d been punched and tossed around Underwent like a ragdoll, with no real chance to find out who my attackers were. Well, that’s what they believed.

I ensured I scanned every last one of them, the ones who punched and tossed me around, I didn’t care that I felled some, that didn’t matter, it was their willingness to attack me without cause. Who were they? And why did they attack me? I'm not on anyone’s death list, I think.

0 Meters.

“You led me to a railing?”

“Affirmative. Hook the cybernetic arm to the railing and rappel down.”

“Oh….”

I did as commanded, loosening the braided wire from around my chest and testing the module once more. It worked, I looped the wiring around the arm because I didn’t wanna leave my fate to a busted cybernetic arm that was retrofitted in fifteen mins. I might’ve already been crazy enough to even follow my artificial assistant’s suggestions, but I wasn’t that crazy.

“THERE HE IS!” A Hannya Boy in a green hoodie shouted.

I jumped on top of the railing and looked at Underwent in its entirety. The sight was jarring. The thousands of lights and buzzing people made it seem alive. However, the damning atmosphere made it bleak, unforgiving and worst of all. Hopeless. If this is where people come to get hope, then Bridge City was a failure.

“HOLY SHIT THAT SON OF A BITCH IS ABOUT TO JUMP!” someone shouted from down below.

I leapt off the side and felt the wires begin to sting my palms as I slid down. I watched as the Hannya Boy tried to yank the wires free, but by the time I came to the end of the rope, the momentum sent me crashing into a glass window shattering it into pieces.

Mangled, bruised and possibly broken. I pushed myself up, looking around. I checked myself for any cuts but only felt light lacerations. GREAT.

The owner of the store eyed me with disgust. “Sorry lady. I’ll be sure to pay when I come back,” I said, lying through my teeth.

I sprang through the door and made my way to my next destination. “Where is it, Nova?”

“40M”

The green light pulsed into existence once more and I followed the trail without fault. When I finally made it to where I needed to be. The sight of a store with a CLOSED sign filled me with wrath. “Today’s not my day,” I said bitterly.

Breaking in would set off the alarm, which, no doubt, would send The Mangol’s enforcers. That was something I didn’t need. I thought about it for a moment, then pursed my lips in frustration. I have to.

My fingers glided across the cold metallic sheet of my case when I felt the grooves that protected the digital keyboard. I snapped it open, typing in my code as fast as I could. Once I heard compressed air from my case hiss, I slid it open, pulling out my Heavy Pistol Teleari-X.

I guess I won't be coming back to underwent, ever again.

I squeezed the trigger, well tried to, but instead felt a jolt of pain shoot up my arm from a tackle I received from my right.

The clank and skating sound my pistol made as it was thrown from my arm, made me pissed. So I rolled, grabbing my attacker’s ankle, and locking it into place before snapping it.

He wailed a ghoulish howl through his metal face, and I sauntered off to pick up my gun. The urge to simply shoot this bastard in the face was there, but I knew full well aiming in my state required concentration, something I lacked right now.

The howling screams of the scrambling patrons crawled against the stale air of Underwent. I found it deafening after shooting two more bullets into the closed-off store. The shattered glass didn’t even cry out, barely a whimper as the glass splattered against the concrete floor like cracked ice from a hollowed iced pond.

The alarm went off and the buzzing motors of the drones flew towards me. I wasn’t one to watch movies, but if there was one. I definitely was the star, but I didn’t have time to sign autographs.

I charged the closed store, clanking through the broken glass and fired three more bullets into the window. It didn’t shatter. So I forced my entire body onto it.

It hissed a crack that bellowed when my full weight finally snapped the glass. The cold winds of the midnight sky smothered me whole, sending a shiver down my spine. The dull lights of the Gallows sparkled an orange and yellow hue for a few seconds as I fell down the side of the building.

At this moment, all the pain, fury and frustration that boiled up with me went quiet, as I fell to the ground. I felt at peace… tranquillity, but that all came to an end when I hit my head against my steering wheel shaking the lucidity from my mind.

“GO!” I growled.

Nova manoeuvred my Xenotis X, shifting it right, I hit my head against steering again, feeling the turbulence. The car swerved unexpectedly and with the door still open, I almost fell through, face first.

I caught myself at my door, but I caught a whiff of something I didn’t expect to see dangling from my car. A dangling silver steel lining is attached to the back and a figure holding tightly at the other end of the line. “Are you shitting me?” I asked the Hannya Boy.

I searched for my pistol and took aim immediately upon finding it. I aimed for ten seconds before switching arms. I was naturally right-handed, but in cases like this, I had no choice but to rely on my cybernetic eye and arm.

The digital display of my Teleari said that I had one bullet left. I’d wasted enough bullets already because nothing happened the way I wanted it to, so I then took aim at the line that was lodged into my car from the steel ball and shot it cleanly off.

The Hannya Boy plummeted to the ground. He didn’t wail or scream for his mother or father. It didn’t faze me, some people wanted a quick death, I guess this was his, but I wouldn’t know.

As I watched him become a speck of dust in my eyesight. I knew he was dead for sure, especially from the height Nova had taken my car.

I sat for a moment, letting relief wash over my body, like warm water on a cold night. I was tired and frustrated. The headache I had earlier, certainly didn’t help, but on top of that Nova chimed in with some bad news.

“Sir, I’ve detected a tracker on the Xenotis.”

“Perfect,” I said bitterly. “just perfect."