deltron 3.

I stood myself up, still woozy from the blow to my head, but ready to defend myself from whatever this chick was about to attempt to pull on me. I started to reach in my pocket for my own switchblade, but the girl closed the distance from us too quickly for me to bother trying. I tensed my abdomen, waiting for the familiar pain of metal tearing its way into my organs and tissue. I was shocked to feel hands clasping around my waist, her head resting against my shoulder, weight pressing me into the wall with such force, I felt my feet starting to sink into the muck. 

"I know what’s happening up there."

I shuddered a bit. "Wait…how?"

She brought her head back to face mine, and I finally got a good glimpse of her features. She had soft, blue eyes and wavy, flowing red hair that fell all the way to her knees. The dirt had smudged itself onto her face and pores, but she still smelled clean, even faintly of perfume, and her speckled face was almost cute, in the dim light of a muddy railway tunnel. She stood roughly the same height as me, as well, which, being a somewhat short guy, didn’t really bother me much. She wasn’t as rail thin as I thought, though, with a bit of muscle packed onto her frame, as well as an ample chest that was still pressed furiously against mine. The sheer attractiveness of a basically homeless person had me puzzled, but so did her implied knowledge of the apocalypse happening above us.

"The Zeitgeist Followers. The ones that have been spouting all that nonsense on billboards and adverts all around? It’s them."

The Zeitgeist Followers were a synthetically enhanced group of humans from the North Coast that at one time looked to usurp most of the world’s political and religious powers and replace them with a more fundamental and "scientifically sound" way of living. Simply put, a bunch of cyborg/zombie bullshit.

I pulled myself away from her long enough to let myself breathe. "I know about the Zeit’s. My brother is in the Alberdan Faction of them in California. But, do you ha-"

She rushed me, no longer looking for affection but instead brandishing a spliced together piece of metal and fabric in the shape of a knife, with many intricate glints and spikes carved into it; I could be cut with about 20 different sections of the blade, which was perfectly grafted against the contours of her knuckles. "His name is Ceith, isn’t it? ISN’T IT?" The last words were spat onto me, and I caught myself squinting heavily as spittle hit my eyeball.

"Wha…no? I’ve never met anyone in the Alberdan. My brother’s name is Typh."

She relaxed a bit. "Oh, T’s just a tick on the dog, there. I was worried you were kin to C, because if you were…" She pulled the blade away from my neck, but in doing so, traced a thin cut into a spot maybe an inch above my collarbone. "…you wouldn’t be leaving here."

I winced a bit and brushed the cut with my finger. "The fuck was that for? You know what; fuck it, I"ve seen enough crazy shit today to last me another fucking war. There’s clouds outside raining down some weird shit that’s crushing people hit by it, and I dunno how long it’ll be before it tries to seep down here or what, but I’m clueless as to where ‘safe’ and ‘deadly’ locations would be right now, but trapped in the rail basin seems like one of those ‘deadly’ places to me."

She stood in silence for a moment. My breath was labored and quick, and rumbling about.

Wait. That’s not my breath.

I looked up and saw the ladder shaking gently.