For All The Bloody Bits

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# Chapter 1

Jiminy skulked in the lowest levels of the Depths, the bottom of the city, way past where the numbers stopped. You didn't visit these levels unless you really, really had to.

Jiminy seriously had to.

She crept along a narrow corridor smelling of burnt rat, each step taken carefully to avoid potential traps. Half the work of grebbing these levels was digging through the piles of crap. The other half was keeping an eye out for the slavers, rapists, killers, and worse prowling around, seeking victims. Every single person this far down—those she couldn't avoid—eyed her as if she were a meal or a drink of precious water.

A pained cry sounded somewhere in the distance. It cut off sharply, which didn't always happen. Sometimes, the screams kept going for a long time. She flattened herself against the concrete wall for a few breaths to look right and left. Her skin and the rags she wore were the grey/brown of a dead mouse and blended in with the surrounding filth and tarnish.

When no further noise sounded, Jiminy left the safety of the wall and started searching again. The city’s most worthless junk drifted all the way down to the bottom and collected in piles dotting the floor. Sometimes, just sometimes, there was a hidden treasure in one of them.

Down this low, each path was only wide enough for two people to walk side by side, though very few went about in the company of others. Most here were solitary people who looked like skin painted on skeletons. Jiminy couldn’t figure out how they survived this deep.

Everyone around her usual levels always had something worth a Bit, enough to get fed. But every once in a while, someone would disappear. Some regular. A guy or gal you've seen around a hundred times. You know, Whatshisname, up and vanished, never to be heard from again.

Jiminy was on the edge of vanishing. She had nothing left to sell. She hadn't eaten for three days, no clean drinking water for two. Her belly had stopped grumbling, her lips were chapped worse than normal, her skin was tight and stretched.

If a grebber got real lucky, they might find something a crypto runner tossed or dropped on the way in or out. A hunk of broken anything from the Wastes would sell for enough to get Jiminy a double serving of grey gruel once she got back to her normal levels, a little higher up.

A pile of refuse was heaped against the wall looking like it hadn't been picked through in a while. The trash on the top was the usual mishmash of tiny shards and broken chips, so nothing there. It was the hunks of compressed crud she was after. One of them may hold something valuable.

The biggest ones she could see, some as big as the end of her thumb, were the best place to start. She chipped and bit them into smaller pieces until she tossed a handful of dust to the side and started a new pile. She crumbled the dry ones, snapped the hard ones, broke apart the scuzzy ones, and wiped a fingerful of sticky goo on the wall.

She kept a couple of lengths of string she might patch into something sellable and found a relic sure to fetch two whole Bit. It was a handle, maybe from a spoon, so caked in grunge she'd had to scrape it off with her thumbnails. The eating end was missing, but handles were always worth a token or two.

With her food and water covered, she sorted a little faster though discovered no other treasures. She soon had the pile picked through, shifted to the side, and ready for the next miserable person to search. She pushed to her feet and wiped her knees off.

Though she didn't know her way around these levels well, she knew where two stairways were. She also knew the way to the closest tunnel leading outside to the Wastes. When she was younger and stupider, she used to find a hiding spot there and watch for crypto runners going through.

On those rare occasions when she saw one, they were so sleek and slick she stared in wonder. Their runner suits were super-tight everywhere and showed off muscles and body shapes Jiminy prayed to have someday.

Not today. Today was a working day, and she'd grebbed enough to keep herself alive until tomorrow. It was time to get paid and get fed. Maybe even buy an extra half-cup of water.

She looked around before heading for the stairway. Three men crept towards her and were closer than anyone normally got down here. They were skin and bones with patchy hair and long, jagged fingernails. They froze when she saw them then clumped together to stare at her with enormous eyes and chitter softly.

Jiminy was young and fast. She could probably outrun them, but if one caught up and took her down, all three would pile on. Who knew what the freaks would do then.

The tallest, lips pulled back from yellow teeth, shuffled a few inches closer, the other two right behind him.

Jiminy tightened her grip on the broken handle and set her feet.

Eyes.

They charged.

Jiminy leapt to meet them and ducked under grabbing hands. She stabbed at anything which came into sight. Thighs were great targets and their thin skin parted easily with each thrust. She stomped on feet, twisted fingers, kicked knees.

A hand found her head and tried to catch hair she'd cut off and sold a week ago. Another caught her shirt and ripped it open. A fist struck her shoulder. One of them got hold of her free arm and she couldn't break his grip.

"Aarrhhh!" she screamed as she jumped on the man holding her arm. She bore him to the floor and stabbed ferociously at his face. He tried to cover up, but she had hold of his throat. He had only one eye left and was screaming in pain when one of the others grabbed her shirt and heaved, but the torn fabric split and came away in his hand. Jiminy drove the handle into the downed man's throat then scrambled up to face the remaining two.

The men watched their colleague clutch at the hole and the blood spurting from it until his arms dropped and he lay still.

"Fuckers!" Jiminy yelled as she dove at them, blood dripping from the handle she held.

Their roars weren't as loud or as venomous, but they came at her.

The three crashed together. Fists and feet flew. Blood spattered the walls. Jiminy stabbed a scrawny belly then got in close and kept stabbing. Hands closed on her bare shoulders and heaved. She bounced off the wall and thumped to the floor, but was up, breath rasping between bared teeth, in seconds.

The one she'd stabbed was down with both hands pressed to his stomach. The tall one stood and stared at her. The hunger was gone from his eyes and fear was in its place.

"I'm gonna eat you and turn you into shit!" Jiminy screamed.

The Depther turned and took the first step to run away, then stopped.

"You alright?" a man's voice asked from the other side.

Jiminy didn't answer the question. Instead, she sprang at the Depther, latched on with legs and one hand, then drove the handle into his back. He cried out and spun wildly, but she had a solid grip and kept sticking him. He fell to his knees, so she stabbed him some more. He collapsed, face down, she kept stabbing. When he was still and silent, she stomped him until she lost her balance and fell to the floor.

"You got a shirt?" the man's voice asked.

Jiminy surged to her feet, ready to fight a dozen more, but there was only one guy. He wore a runner suit, had a hand on the pistol at his belt, and watched her with gorgeous blue eyes.

A quick look revealed she was topless and spattered with blood.

"No," she said after a few moments silence. "They wrecked it."

"Maybe got something," he said as he raised his hands. "You gonna come at me if I look?"

This man, in his tight suit, was solid muscle. He had a pistol, knives, who knew what else. He walked the Wastes. He was prepared to face skinners and raiders and waste wolves and anything else out there. Even if she wanted to take him out, there was no chance she'd succeed.

She shook her head.

He reached down and picked up the bag beside him. It was grey, like the rest of the world, but made of 'last forever' stuff like his suit. He kept his eyes on her as he dug about inside then pulled out a wad of something grey.

"It's just an old bag," he said extending the cloth and stepped closer, "but it'll cover you."

Jiminy tensed at the approach but remained still until he was close enough for her to snatch the fabric from his hand and step back. The bag was a piece of crap, worn through in several spots, but the seams looked solid.

"I have a knife," he said. "I could put some holes in, if you want. For arms and head?"

She grunted and tossed the bag back.

"I'm Jace," he said, drawing a knife.

"Jiminy," she answered as he sliced a couple of spots.

"Prob'ly best to stay higher up."

Jace sheathed his knife and handed the bag to Jiminy.

"Piles is dry."

"That bad, huh? Hang on." He dug about in his bag again then pulled out something small. "Only a few Bit, but enough, right?"

He flicked the thing towards her, and she snapped it from the air.

A key!

"Good luck, Jiminy."

Jace walked away.

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