Playing in the junkyard

It's a little ways away but that little glint of metal is my home away from home. The junkyard. Well the junkyard itself isn't particularly welcoming but I've carved out my own little place there. That's where I'm heading today.

So I start walking towards the metal in the distance not a care in the world for now. I've never heard of the junklads coming this far out from the junkyard so I don't have to be wary of my surroundings just yet.

The junklads are essentially the bosses of this territory. They use the junk to build different gadgets that help them become the bosses of the underworld they are. Their boss and his second are above average engineers and thus can use all the junk in here to build some nice gadgets for their subordinates as well as themselves.

Because of this, the junklads protect the junkyard with their lives and have made it their base of operations. It's even become common knowledge that seeing someone with one cybernetic eye is proof of being a junklad member. Obviously that's rubbish because there are cyborgs that aren't junklad around though there aren't many near here. Not to mention that some higher ups in junklad have both cybernetic eyes among other enhancements.

They've become a formidable underworld force because of their enhancements and the police aren't particularly active or effective on this planet. Normally primitive worlds like ours wouldn't have police protection at all but we're a dump planet so we have some albeit light police protection. Because of this you could say the junklads would be the de-facto ruler of this part of the planet.

They're only active here though so the police don't really have the motivation to stop them so long as they stay in our district. They just don't have the manpower or motivation as most of these cops have been demoted here. Though there are some goody-two-shoes who got put here for poking their noses where they don't belong.

Regardless being the hideout of what is essentially the ruler of this part of the planet there aren't many who would come here willingly. They're either junklad hopefuls or idiots. I of course consider myself neither of the above though I'd be willing to join if they eventually found me and started threatening me into it or something. It'd give me a good excuse to get the goody-two-shoes involved. So long as I don't break any laws myself while I'm at it. Which… might be hard actually.

My musings stop immediately once the junkyard gets within a few hundred yards of me. Now is the time for stealth. I just have to make it to my hideout and I'll be fine. But doing so is always the hard part.

In front of me is piles and piles of old equipment. Anything that isn't toxic or immediately capable of exploding goes here when it doesn't fit it's intended purpose any more. Not to say there isn't anything that does in fact explode but only those that are not immediately recognized as on the verge of doing so.

The piles of equipment are stacked in such a way that there are paths where you can walk and you likely will not step on anything too explosive or have an avalanche of possibly explosive materials fall on you. That said, the paths do sometimes collapse and the only reason it's so cleanly available right now is the junklads.

Which of course means that they know these paths like the back of their hand and can patrol them as such. Basically, this area is really dangerous for anyone but the junklads and only moderately dangerous for the junklads. Here I am then, a non-member of the junklads with little combat experience, the body of a 15 year old girl and no equipment to speak of.

Oh, if people who loved stacked odds were here they'd be just ecstatic. I on the other hand, start carefully walking through one of the paths. Using my flexibility to keep my footsteps light and keeping my senses sharp for anything that moves. Even the junk that occasionally falls down from one of the piles a little distance away makes me jump in my skin.

After turning a few corners and getting to an area I find vaguely familiar I hear footsteps. It's not hard they aren't masking them and they're walking on a bunch of metal junk. Obviously they're making quite a bit of noise. They are however coming from around the corner in front of me and any turn in the path is a little ways back.

He's still a distance away thanks be to my feline senses but I don't think I have the time to go back and turn a corner somewhere. Even if I did he would likely continue his patrol and just make me lost by the end of our little chase.

So I take the third option and climb up the junk piled atop itself beside me. Sometimes I would slip on something and have it drop onto the path but it's just one more for the pile. Once I'm a good distance up the mound of junk I'm currently climbing I look for any hole in the junk mound. Maybe it's just a bigger piece of junk holding a few others up and leaving a gap or maybe it's just a metal rusted bar placed atop a square with a gap in the middle.

I look for something that has a hole small enough for a child to fit into. Even a small one will do I can widen it. Getting a little frantic in my search since I am currently yet to find one I start to instead look for something to make a whole.

After some time searching I finally find something that fits my purposes. A metal crowbar near me and a square cage that is near enough on the top of the mound. I quickly take the cage and shove it into the mound of junk trying to make as little noise as possible, before placing the crowbar on the top of the cage and therefore stopping the massive square box looking thing from entering the metal cage.

Then I squeeze into the cage with a few pieces of junk I grabbed from nearby and shove them through the gaps in the metal cage to keep myself obscured before going utterly silent. I keep my breathing calm and regular but I make sure it's as quiet as possible. If I get too scared and start to hyperventilate I'll run out of oxygen (even with the air hole) before the junklad member walks past my mound.

So I stay hidden making as little noise as possible as I hear the footsteps coming closer and closer. Until eventually the footsteps are so close even human ears could hear them and peeking out of a tiny hole in the junk I shoved in front of me I watch as a guy somewhat similar to the men from earlier walks around the corner towards the path I was on until a minute ago.

He's looking around for signs of intruders vigilantly though he's doing so in an amateurish manour. I mean he's not even looking where he's going. He's on a pile of junk. He could trip on anything and yet he's not even looking at the floor that seems a little reckless to me if anything but he also seems pretty diligent. Whether that's due to fear or loyalty I don't know or care but he clearly has his head on a swivel.

As he walks past the part where I stood a little while ago he suddenly trips on something and falls over. It looks pretty comical from my angle but he clearly didn't expect it because he puts out his hands and that is an incredibly stupid move to do in a junkyard when falling into a pile of metal.

A little after he hits the floor he screams a very girly scream. He is a guy by the way if I didn't make that obvious, yet despite this fact… I hear an incredibly high pitched squeal come from the man's mouth as he watches his hands get impaled on what looks to be a broken half of a bio-electric sword.

Despite this meaning that he will likely have help coming and attract attention to this position for some reason, I'm smiling with glee and watching in anticipation for what comes next. He tries to pick himself up using his hands as the instinct goes but obviously that just digs his hands deeper into the blade now charged by his own electricity and causes him even more pain.

This elicits another girly scream from the man and almost a similar girly scream from me though for entirely different reasons. He starts flailing around and rolls on his back. Nothing impales him this time but having slightly sharp objects poke your back can't be very comfortable let alone laying on bare metal. So obviously he rolls over once again which means he uses his hands again and that causes the situation to get even worse.

Screams from the man accompany the scene in front of me like a perfect score in an incredibly moving film. His blood scattered across the places he rolled and pooling below the area where he got stabbed in the first place. His face is scrunched up in panic, terror and pain the perfect combination.

Oh this is no good. I think to myself realizing that despite my warning to myself earlier, my breathing is getting ragged and I am most definitely not calm. In fact it wouldn't surprise me if someone found me because of the noise my heavy breathing is making.

So I tear my eyes away from this beautiful scene as much as it pains me and start thinking about things I could make with the junk around me. Not much of it is particularly useful. I mean I suppose you could bludgeon the man with the crowbar and perhaps this cage could be modified to hold him in chains as I-

Suddenly I realize this is not helping so instead I close my eyes and think of sleep. Yep lots of sheep. Well my hunter instincts are going to kick in if I look at them for too long so lets think of pillows and massages. All comforting things for most people I'm sure.

Eventually after a long session of thinking about Supposedly comforting objects that devolved into me asking what is comforting. I eventually forgot what I was thinking before and when I do I hear more footsteps and realize I can still smell the iron in the air from the man's blood.

'He's still here' I thought to myself a little startled. Having calmed down by this point however I attempt to re-focus and open my eyes. As I do so I see someone else coming around the corner. Similar to the guy rolling around on the floor he has a cybernetic eye and that's about the only distinctive feature about the man. Though this guy does have a weirdly cool leather jacket on.

"Oh. You idiot. Did you fall over in the junkyard? Here I thought it was some emergency intruder or something but just some bonehead who fell over is all I get?" I hear the man grumble to himself. Though he wasn't particularly quiet or anything when he did so.

He helps the man, who is essentially a worm writhing around on the floor at this point, get up by having him lean on his shoulder. Then he walks off with the guy on his shoulder still panicked and pain-stricken. He's even crying by this point, which I only barely notice as I watch him leave.

Listening to their footsteps as they recede. I heave a huge sigh once I hear nothing any more and I slowly emerge from my metal cocoon. Stretching to get rid of the typical issues after not moving for a little while. I make a few quick jumps down the junk mound and back on the path, now covered in the man's blood, humming a little tune to myself as I walk along.