Splicers Story About a Woman and Biotics

by Spliceman

Summary:

A merchant goes to a ruined city that has become the home of a bunch degenerate mutant super-soldiers.

Notes:

Splicers is a roleplaying game made by Palladium Books. It features bio-technology and evil robots. This is story was made because I wrote a bit of crunch for the game and people wanted me to use a story to introduce all that.

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

Over a grassy field a woman pushes a cart. Her grumbling got worse with each flustered step until she hit a patch of mud and bumped into the cart so hard she knocked the wind out of herself.
The cursing then began.
“Goddamn cart! Goddamn evil Machines taking over the planet! Goddamn evil Machines inventing a virus that makes all metal freak out to the touch! Goddamn metal virus making humanity have to invent monstrous biotechnology to keep fighting! Goddamn bio technology being too expensive for me so I have to use this half rotten wooden cart!” She said kicking the chart. Her wrath was so that the mud puddle released the cartwheel with a wet pop and the cart rolled wild down hill. In her frustration she let the thing roll to the bottom hoping that if the cart could feel pain that the crash would hurt it even more.
As the cart traveled a bump sent a small sack airborne and it threw its contents into the air: Orange dust. The woman sighed as she saw the colorful cloud take flight. Despite everything it was a beautiful sight to watch the powdery mist settle and crawl over the field.
“I could never sell that color, anyway.” She said while letting go of her fury.
Soon she arrived at her destination: A destroyed city. A landscape painted in grey with black scotch marks. Sky scrapers blown apart looking like fish bones sticking out from their wounds. It was a place and army would look at and keep moving, everything had been destroyed and nothing worth their time remained.
Following a path through the debris she came to a hard stop to a wall with a fist size hole in it. Setting her cart aside she approached the hole.
“Who?!” A screeching voice came from the otherside. She jumped in surprise.
“Err, I'm Avon. I'm a merchant here to sell fine makeup.” she said.
“NOT THAT WAY! ANSWER TO WHAT HAS BEEN ASKED!” An intense grizzly voice said followed by what sounded like thumps all the way up the wall. Avon quickly looked but the sun got in her eyes. She could make out a large man perched on the wall waving his arms like a maddened gorilla. The man jumped back behind before she could get a clear look and said, “NOW AGAIN! IN ORDER!... WHO?!”
“Avon…?” She said with uncertainty. Her body was split between running away and just complying to try and make this creature leave her alone.
“WHY?!” It shouted again, this time she could see him looking through the hole. His skin was rough like elephant hide and his eye was a weird twist of yellow and red.
“I just want to sell makeup products!”
“ARE YOU A PART OF THE MACHINE?”
“No!” Finally an answer that she could say confidently.
“APPROVED, YOU MAY ENTER! PLEASE WAIT -AAAAAARGH!” The man-thing screamed then a series of bangs came from the wall. The ground beneath Avon shook and she fell back. The screaming and pounding continued until the wall exploded in dust. With thuds the man again showed himself: Seven feet tall and about as wide covered in a military uniform formed from bones decorated in holes. He looked like some sort of fantasy creature made entirely of callus rather than a soldier. Black ichor dripped from his fists. This was her first time really seeing a Biotic up close, a bioengineered soldier.
The creature turned right to her eyes flared, blood dripping from his fists. She felt an icy grip on her spine and could do nothing but visualize him ripping her limb from limb.
The callus man thing looked down at her, her cart and then stepped aside waving her to push her cart through. Black blood accidentally spritzing her in the gesture. She got halfway through the new hole in the wall when her cart got pinched. A chill went through her spine as she spun around to see the “doorman” point at the cart and say, loudly, that he will help. She leapt out of the way as he gave the cart a shove that threw it clear but shredded the sides, sending wood splinters flying behind her. For the second time she is in the dirt.
“Are you okay?” A new voice said it was a man holding an outstretched hand and lifted her up with no effort.
“Thank you.” She said while dusting herself off. Like all potential marks she scoped this new one out. He was another biotic, this time green skinned like a big with double jointed legs and arms so long, so long they stopped at his knees. His face was symmetrical at least, but the row of eyes circling his head like a crown was disconcerting. If the doorman was a brutish scab, this one was a tired mantis.
“I'm security. I'll just try and keep you from stepping on anything metal and exploding.” The gangly thing said. Avon scoffed at his remark but seeing the man's face pucker quieted her. He had not been exaggerating.
She spoke to move on from this silent, grizzly conversation.
“My name is Avon, Lady Avon.” She extended her hand.
“My name is… ‘Throw’” He said with a noticeable pause, “Are you from a clan?”
“No,” she replied with a rehearsed laugh, “I travel between Houses so I gave myself the title.”
The man paused and laughed. It was a measured risk and a half lie. She had heard they were anarchists here and didn't honor House ranks. The lady title was more of a joke she read on a piece of trash.
She had heard that the people here were anarchists. That is to say, all biotics are considered very low on the social order, literally the same rank as the horses and dogs. She was betting that low level cretens would find appointing yourself a royal title as a funny joke. Although… There were always the biotic that climbed the ladder and were quite loyal to the clan caste system. Just about anyone that took those things seriously would have given her a thrashing for the gall.
A disquieting moment, she realized that she could be torn limb from limb by anyone of these people. She turned back to see the “gate” to see the brute throwing rocks back in the doorway and pulverizing the pile when the path got too full. The blood mixing with the gravel beat home the idea, the screaming as the guard wailed on the rocks was redundant.
“So do you need a guide?” Throw asked to break her train of thought.
So the two set off. Avon didn't know where anything was and the city looked like a trash help so she asked wherever the most foot traffic was. Navigating there was walking through a maze of trenches, he would point out the meaning of smears of paint or odd decorations. Most were marking someone's living area. Avon saw one marking that had a score through the rock, Throw said that was someone who had died in combat.
The two were stopped by a roadblock, rubble had fallen over and blocked a path.
“We will have to climb over this spot. Follow me, I'll scout for metal. Sounds Good?” Thow said with a click of his heels.
Metal was not a joke. A bit of wire or an old nail slips into your pocket and it could mutate and explode like a grenade or become a cloud of caustic gas. Even two hundred years of people treading over an area that could have an ancient bit of scrap could inconveniently decide to show itself to the world.
The climb was terrible on her nails and hands but Throw was going slowly to keep her near. They both stood on top of the pile when suddenly Throw sneezed and a gust of wind knocked her off her feet. She was swearing God and creation as she was about to fall down the trash pile when Jet grabbed her by the scuff of her shirt… with his feet. Looking like a drunken monkey-bug doing a handstand reaching for something off the shelf, Throw pulled her back to feet. Then she saw his back. It was a series of holes, nostrils and tubes opening and closing, dripping with mucus.
With trembling hands she checked her face, yes, she was now covered with back-snot.
“What the hell,man?” She blurted out, wiping the mucus from her eyes. She tried to glare at Throw but almost stood back again as her eyes locked straight with a human eyeball staring back at her right in the center of the back of his head. She swallowed hard to not let out another curse. Metaphorically swallowed, she was afraid some of it was in her mouth.
“Sorry, sorry, it's the dust. Here, hold my hand, I'll guide you down.” He said. She grabbed his hand with a wet slap to be sure that she got some of his own snot on him. Despite his attempts to walk normally it was clear to Avon now that Throw walks like a fall-down toy, shambling around shifting between standing upright and walking on three limbs like an ape. His body is not deciding if it's a man or four elongated multi jointed limbs attached together by a short body.
When they finally got down the hill, Throw stood back and a small hurricane blew out of the many holes in his back and he took off, resounding with the sound of what sounded like a thousand poorly made whistles. He flew up and over the hill and returned not a second later holding the cart over his head. Not a few more twists and turns in the trenches did they arrive in an open thorough fair in the shadow of the tallest skyscraper. It was time to make some money.
She grabbed a sack from the back of the unfortunate cart and pulled out some white blankets and a clean dress for herself. She let her practiced hands take over as she rolled herself up and converted the abused wagon into a display table with white satin blankets wrapped over all the abuse.

Chapter 2: Chapter 2

She clocked her chin to put the disgusting horrors behind her. It was her time now to do what she loved: Manipulate people to buy pretty dust.
The display and her dress was attracting attention from the militarized mutants walking about. Rapid fire she was profiling each one. These people were once human, surely her old instincts would work.
The display attracted attention as they passed. She sized them up from a block away. She could tell who was going to come, who was walking past, and who needed encouragement. For this crowd, for a normal human outsider selling crap they don't need, she needed to bait the hook.
“Hey, Throw. I need you to stand here and talk for a second.” She said beckoning over to Throw who was beginning to wander off.
“Can this wait? I have something to check on.”
“It will only take a second. I need you to stand there.” She said pointing to the front of the display.
“Why?” He said shuffling to the spot.
“Because it attracts customers. Now keep talking.” She said in an abrupt tone.
“Talk about what?”
“Doesn't matter, tell me why your back is a bunch of flying nostrils.”
“I said I was sorry. It's a jetpack mutation. They wanted me to be a scout so between that, my arms and legs-”He paused to tap the top of his head,”-and my eyes I can get anywhere and see everything. They gave me these grenades growing out of my chest to bug out since I was supposed to operate solo.” He tapped his chest last on three hard sacs fastened to his chest by what looked like green veins.
“Wait, so you're naked? I thought you were wearing some combat vest?” His ‘chest’ was a bulky layer of overlapping plates in deep military green. It even has ID information written on it. It didn't match his skin color at all and certainly looked like other pieces of removable biotechnology armor she had seen before.
“I'm not totally naked. I've got my pants. My body was reinforced against explosions, especially my chest. My C.O. was strict about uniforms so I was tweaked to look like I was wearing the same gear as the rest of the outfit.”
“Is that also why to tuck in those legs? To fit in? How tall are you normally?” She cruelly prodded. It was a momentary lapse and she let her frustrations and contempt vent if just slightly.
“Have I stood here and talked enough?” He said with some sass. Avon saw one bushy person standing behind him so she nodded. As he turned to walk away Avon gave a quick thank you with striking sincerity.
She thought for a moment about how Throw made it sound like he never has had a choice in the mutations he is given. More pressingly it sounded like he had pants but didn't say if he was actually wearing them.
The customer drew close and Avon assessed them. It was the scariest bitch she had ever seen and that was being polite: gaunt features with a large mouth that hung low so as to make way for all the teeth. Each and every tooth was a spear pointed in every direction but most were pointed right at Avon. Her lips were shredded from contact with the teeth. Her eyes bulged out and twitched wildly from target to target, dull and dark like the eyes on a cheap doll. Her hair wiry like she had been electrocuted. Like all biotics she was over six feet tall, something Avon was going to have to get used to.
“What's this?” The monster woman said with a distorted hiss. The cherry on top was that she pointed with her hand revealing each finger was a talon easily half a foot long. Avon invited to put makeup on her and the ferocious creature agreed.
She lowered down to Avon like a hanged puppet until she met her at eye level, now she was crouching like a gargoyle. Black pupils with faded white sclera. Her eyes didn't move, not even a slight shift, they stayed locked on Avon’s every move.
“Can you close your eyes for this?” Avon asked.
“Okay.” She said blankly. Her eyes stayed open again, not moving and staring a hole at her.
“Your eyes aren’t closing…?” Avon said with discrete hesitation. She did not know how this woman would react to any sort of correction.
“Yes, they are. Armored membrane.” She said pointing a long talon at her eyes, “My eyelids are on the inside so even if I close my eyes I still see. Go ahead and get sloppy with it, I won’t feel a thing.”
Avon acknowledged what she said and got to work quickly. Her skin was pale but there was a hint of olive if she squinted. She reached into her experience and thought that pinks or mauves and gold undertones would work.
“So, what is your name, dear?” Avon asked to lighten the mood and prime the biotic to buy the makeups she was slathering on her.
“Jenny, Frenzy Jenny.”
“If you can see through your eyelids then how do you sleep?”
“I don’t. Not well.” She said it in a stressful tone.
“Is that a mod you have?”
“No.” After a long pause she opened up more, “I have to bury my face in mud to stop seeing, and my head to stop hearing so much. I just crawl into the dirt in general to try and sleep.” On that note Avon was almost finished.
The transformation was rather quick for with a few brush strokes a pale psychotic ghoul looked like a rosy psychotic ghoul. Still emanating danger and madness but now lively and embellishing her cheekbones made her look more dynamic and commanding.
The other biotics that had gathered to watch gave approval and encouragement to the monster-woman and she rushed off to find a mirror to see how she looked. She rushed off in such a hurry that Avon wasn’t able to actually sell her any makeup. Avon was so frightened by the ghoul that she messed up her well practiced. She also wished she had gotten a new, non-metallic, mirror after she broke the last one in one of the several car accidents to get here.
Next time she would upsell the hell out of the bastard. The next bastard was waiting right there, in fact.
The next customer came and sat down without a word. He was top heavy with a tremendously armored torso and head with spindly long limb, in this regard he reminded her of Throw or some sort of beetle masquerading as a human. This one had milky large eyes and his head twitched at sudden times, it was so rapid and random it could not be voluntary. If Frenzy Jenny had a problem with too much eye contact then this man had the opposite, it was impossible for him to look anyone in the eye. The gaps in his plates glowed blue in pulses.
Fantastic. Let’s sell makeup to a man with glowing lights and a hardshell. Might as well put makeup on a car. She pondered that grumble for a second and a crumb of inspiration hit.
“We’re going to try metallics for you.” She said without much of a hello. She felt an awkward moment approaching like a train so she elaborated, “If you look like a bug you will be a great looking bug, eh?”
“I am a b-bug.” The customer stated.
“You mean now, right? All biotics were people as I understand.” She said, mixing the green with shiny flakes and transition colors. There were lots of names for the many biotech monsters they were making and they did not skimp on categorizing. Biotics were humans, volunteer or not, that were subjected to intense genetic altering into a biological super soldier. She had spoken to a high ranking Dreadguard about it: Only Biotics are made from humans and all other creations are not to take human form. Humanity in all its interpretations was sacred and to just make a humanoid was considered sacrilege… and inefficient. Only humans are biotics and only biotics can be made from a human.
“No, I’m a bug. I was always a bug. I’m nothing like a p-person so I must have always been a bug. Works out better that way…” He said without twitching. His large eyes looked like they were filled with spoiled milk, perhaps in the clouds of it you could see retinas. Avon was sure that they were unfocused at this point.
“Okay… You’re a bug. Do you have a name?” She said setting up the green sheen mixture and black. This was a double load job if there ever was one.
“Bug. Bug Brian.” He said, “It started as ‘bug brain’ but it changed to Brian after a while then Bug Brian with sometimes going back to Bug Brain.”
“Hold still. Sounds like a group gave you a nickname. I don’t know how Biotics get named. Is there a tradition or a form you fill out…?” She said as she began her great work. She was sure that like Frenzy Jenny this guy would not feel anything touching his eyes short of a large caliber bullet, but habits. Also she had to use strokes so broad it was more like painting a house.
“Biotic Lot: Zx Unit: 8-87898. My assigned squad at the time changed my name. Didn’t mind it. Always was a B-B-Brian.”
“What do you mean by that?...” She spoke and regretted it. The people around her were signalling to not talk about that with hand gestures that she could only assume were mixes of warning and swearing. The lights under his skin got brighter as he twitched to look her right in her eye. It caused her to smear a heavy bit of foundation across his eye-screen. “I mean, so what do you do these days?”
“Generate biofields, bomb disposal, intercept artillery and missile strikes. Take the hit, take the hit.” Brian took the offer to change the subject.
“Okay, there is that. Now stand and rotate.” Bug Brian did so and as he did Avon liberally threw glitter at him by the handful. With that final touch he looked like a horrible bug monster to a majestic bug monster.
“I don’t see the point, no.” Bug Brian said, looking himself over in all odd directions.
“I think it makes you look expensive! Like something rare and valuable. If you ask me, I think that’s the best look of all.”
Brian looked at his shimmering glimmering shell with green metallic highlights and muttered to himself, “...worth something.” Before nodding to something unsaid.
“Okay. twenty?” The insect-like humanoid said, reaching for his pouch.
“Forty, please. Full body glitter jobs are extra.” It was surprising how often she has had to say that in her life. Still, she was upticking the poor schmuck to cover for that witch creature that dashed on her.
“Forty, yes. Forty.” He said after handing her a handful of gold coins. It was remarkable, a mix of modern collector coins of leaders she never knew and old, old treasure. Perhaps he picked them up from a museum on the battlefields. Brian’s back then split open and several transparent wings clicked out and connected together at ribbed joints.
“Oh god.” Avon dove in front of her cart and flipped out the sheet. It was just in time to save her goods from the drowning buzzing and gale force of the bug-brain taking off like a helicopter.
“How many of you freaks can fly!?” She shouts. A moment later quiet settles and she grits her teeth, hoping that her potential customers didn’t hear that.
A moment of quiet she thought about lunch. She was reaching for her sack wondering if there was anything at all pin there she could eat when she interrupt by a loud, aggressive voice:
“You're the makeup woman people are talking about?” A hulking man said, sitting exactly where everyone else had sat. Avon hadn't noticed him at all. She did notice the slight heart attack though.
This guy was not too unlike the ‘gate guard’ with a thuggish build and hyper masculine features, his skin was ballistic tough with a large tube that shot up from his shoulder and pivoted around as if it was like some parrot. Like most of the biotics he was armored and armed but his face looked like a blind child's crafts project.
“What can I do for you?” Avon asked in a well rehearsed line.
“Can you paint this on my back?” He enrolled a scrap of soft leather with a strikingly detailed picture of a boy, the art had fine details and colors as if it was painted with paint and on a canvas.
“Sure, I can do that. Is this pencilled on here or something?” She said studying it closely.
“Actually it's dyed and etched. It's different than tattooing mind you. I used to be a leatherworker as well as a grunt!” He said with some pride. Looking at it from an angle she could see that it had been carved with such detail as a face on a coin.
“Oh wow.” She exclaimed.
She began work on his back. She was nowhere near this guy's level of artistry but the drawing looked like it used her least popular shades and if it was on his back so she could get away with it… provided he didn't have an eye stalk or some other freakish thing.
“Put it on the left shoulder. It's supposed to be for luck or protection. I don't remember.”He said, scratching his chin,looking at the busy street.
“Ah, I think I've heard of this. Don't people just write the name?”
“Yes. I took a round to the head recently and can't recall names much. Remember faces clear as day, though. Besides, if a name counts, a picture has got to be better, right?
“So you remembered your past life?”
“Yes, I volunteered. I say I'm a leatherworker but everyone fights, you know?”
She didn't comment on that. She didn't have a house. She traveled between places Selling crushed bugs at outrageous fees. She fought the machine as much as she gave discounts, as in not at all. If there is one thing shared in Splicer societies is that cowardice was the greatest sin.
“So… Do you still do leatherworking?” She changed the topic.
“Yes. You can't tattoo bio altered skin since it regenerates surface damage. I learned how to tan biotechnology skin into a form of leather from desert bandits I was tracking. You see it involves Urine…”
She thought perhaps she had made a horrible mistake.
“... Biotic urine is too acidic and has too many contaminants interfering with color. But the local rats, you see…”
She had never finished so fast. Looking over her work and realizing something, “So who is this?”
“My son at least as I remember him. They say he's a spitting image of me.”
“You know, I could do up the beauty marks on your face, make you look like his dad again?”
After looking at the leather scrap for a bit then shook his head, “No. I think I've changed too much. I'd rather go with a gene-rewrite to get my face back rather than make this face look kind of like what I want.
He handed over a few small discs, gold circuitry surrounded with a plastic ring. These things were called data disks. Before the machine tried to annihilate humanity this was the latest method of data storage. They are given value based on their color, supposedly they are color coded based on how important the information is. Of course it's all legends, we haven't found a computer that could read the disks that wouldn't first grow arms and legs and try to rip your face off.
The disks she was paid in were grey-ringed, most likely blank discs. Cheapest grade but enough for payment. Much to her surprise the Biotic hadn't walked away.
“I hope you don't mind if I sit here for lunch.” He said
“I actually do.” She said,
“You're in my lunch spot. I'm in security. From your spot I can eat my rat while watching all lanes of traffic.” He said obstinately sitting firmly and reaching through a sack on his side.
“Couldn't you just sit next to me? I don't think you can see much sitting there, blocking my business.” She said after a pause and a hateful glare. He thought for a bit as if trying to think of a counterpoint before raising the armored eyebrows in surprise and acquiescing. He got up and plopped down on a rock right next to her. He then pulled out his lunch, a rat the size of a dog, and bit into the back of its neck with a violent crunch.
For the third time today she wanted to scream then vomit but her innards were held tight by that she had already figured out the value of sitting in this spot and the opportunity loss if she ran away screaming, something she had been plotting since she got here. No, it was too valuable to sit here and establish brand recognition. She summoned her willpower again to swallow the puke pushing up into her mouth.
“So, your son?” She asked. An unconscious part of her realized that this leather neck lumpkin would stop eating rats if he was busy talking.
“Yes, he’s been drafted into the forces. I heard last that he made it into the roughnecks. He’ll be paired with a Host Armor which is leagues better than what me and my squad ever got until I was made over, that is.” He said, opening his mouth wide about to start on a new rat, the thing hissing and urinating in fury to escape.
“-I’m glad you love your son so much but… why volunteer to be a Biotic? I’m sorry if that’s too personal.” She said sliding back to not get a bit of rat on her dress.
“Oh, that!” He said, whipping the creature on the ground to stun it before putting it back in the sack. He puffed out his chest and held out his hands as if he was presenting a well rehearsed fairy tale, “I had a dream that my House had defeated a computer core and my son would live in peace never again having to be threatened by killer robots. I dreamt I was there in that final battle with explosions and all that. Problem was that I was getting aged out of the armed forces so faced with retirement I volunteered to be made into a bio-soldier and keep fighting. They said I probably wasn’t going to survive the process given my age but we decided to see what happens. I take my survival as a sign I might get to have my dream come true.”
Avon was going to question why he would choose being a mutated human-weapon over not fighting and maybe spending time with his son but she was already tipped off when he spoke about his son entering the Roughnecks. Splicers revered self-sacrifice above all other things and the more elite you were, like going from commoner to entering the Roughnecks, the more you were to demonstrate that value.
“So you are choosing to keep fighting for your son?”
“For my son and his eventual children.”
“Wait, how did you end up here?” She suddenly wondered.
“Oh yeah, my House was invaded by a swarm of tunnel snakes. My squad was behind to cover civilian transport escapes when the swarm overtook us. My entire squad was grinding into pink slurry right in front of me as they ate all my limbs and skin. All that was left of me was my head, torso, and a few stumps. A long while of crawling I found my way here. It took Roast Bump months for me to regenerate all my limbs. I have no idea where my House or anyone is. It’s all been chewed and grinded away.” He said with a nonchalant tone.
“Holy spit!” She said in horror, then composed herself and asked, “...Is that why you keep eating rats? Because all that time brings a quadruple amputee?” She said slowly, it was a sentence she never thought she would say.
“That's actually because of my cannon,”he pointed a rat at the twitching tube sticking out of his shoulder, “It's connected to my stomach which compacts everything I can't digest and shoots it out. I eat tough, bony things to give my shots that extra punch. Gotta be in top form to be security, you know.”
“Oh, so you work with Throw?”
“No!” He turned aggressive, “He says he's in security but I'm the security alright? He does things his way and I do things how it should be done.” He leaned toward her with his disgusting shoulder tube cannon squaring right at her and growled, “You ask the wrong questions, lady. Where are you even from?”
Just then, Throws' familiar voice interrupted, “Hey, Avon. The King wants to see you.” Throw interrupted, “Cut the crud, Gram. She has somewhere to be.”
The Biotic, Gram, turned his gaze and his gastric weapon to Gram, not changing in his expression. Then like a red-hot kettle dipped in water his anger sapped out. Leaving a quiet Hulk trying not to look embarrassed.
Avon scooted quickly with Throw in toe. That man “Gram” had gone from talking about his dreams and family to looking like he was legitimately about to kill her where she sat.
Not twenty feet down a wide path, what passes as a main road here, she spotted a tall building scorched black and decorated. Thick ropes defined an entrance which was a flattened path of rubble leading to a stairwell. Not even did they get up the first floor and Throw turned around, with his teeth gritted.
“Ah, You're gonna have to go up there without me. Just tell them I brought you here and you'll be fine.” Throw said like he was being burned in the arm.
“I don't know where to go into this building… Is that alright?”
“It's okay he's on the roof. Just keep following the guide ropes and you'll get there.” He said waving her on. Avon looked up and saw the stairs only made it to the next floor. She was also greeted with a falling rock bouncing down the crumbling structure.
“This looks a bit dangerous for a human, couldn't you fly me up there? Surely it's no trouble.”
“Yeah, I can't do that.” He said with some hesitation.
Avon looked at Throw. Perhaps A horrible talent of hers was seeing personal weaknesses in people feeling vulnerable and Throw was putting a lot for her Bitch-sense to dig into.
“You're afraid of heights?”She spat before thinking.
“Hey!”
“But what about when you flew my chart around?”
“I didn't have to go very high. I'm fine a few feet off the ground.”
“You have a built in jetpack and probably can climb better than a spider-monkey. Why did they program you to be afraid of heights? You probably wouldn't even be that hurt by falling.”
“It came up later, just @#$%ing walk along the rope.” Throw said leaving in a huff.