Then the first of them broke the surface.
They were not beasts in the animal sense. The Meridian breeds many horrors—fused plate and jawbone, scavenged mech-frames with human echoes—but these were more refined: sun-etched hulks, their joints rimed in brass, faces like shuttered portholes whose interiors glowed with a furious, blue-white light. They moved like they were made of storms, and each step sparked the ground. At their shoulders were tanks, small and familiar—the shape of animo dispensers welded crudely onto metal spines.
“An ambush?” Kori asked from the lookout. She was young, fierce; she’d learned to snipe with an old railgun and a patience I envied. beasts in the sun ep1 supporter v8 animo pron work
I crushed the vial in my hand.
“Solace’s been coughing,” Jaro grunted, smoke stinging his eyes. He was the caravan leader: a broad man with hands that looked like they could bend iron and a smile that could melt it. “You and your charm, Leena—fix it or we don’t reach the northern market before dusk.” Then the first of them broke the surface
I opened the envelope. Inside were coordinates, scrawled in a script I recognized from the vial’s label—an address in the Scar where the Old Makers’ remnants held sway. A place where they forged and rewired and tried to resurrect designs the world had outlawed. Mara’s eyes were sharp. “They’ll want more animo,” she said. “They’ll want to graft Solace into something greater. If you don’t stop them, the scar will eat the Meridian.”
Some debts are paid with coin. Some with credit. Some with blood. Mine would be paid with the slow tool of hands and the stubbornness of a Supporter V8. They moved like they were made of storms,
The speaker-amplifier crooned. “Give. Preserve. Elevate. The sun favors new synths.”
Suddenly, Mara appeared at my side, impossibly calm, a pistol at her hip. “You should’ve sold it,” she said.