Free Usu by Jayde Ver Elst Page A

piece of silver hair back into her head wrap while briefly making eye-contact with what was beginning to resemble a sunset on prescription anthrax.
    She’d long since prepared for the departure, the strangely unnatural pier beside her was aloft with water, much like the rest of the city's bottom level. Next to Mercury bobbed a large transparent yet thick and slimy ball with one large hole atop for entrance, an entrance she used rather abruptly when she dropped Rain, Usu, Modbot and her rather brash self through all at once. She traced her fingers around the edges of the hole, which sealed itself instantly and began shedding thicker and thicker slime until their slow descent into purgatory began.

Android - The Day Forgotten
     
    I messed up Dee. I messed up really, really bad.
    Snow, he… he kept telling me not to go into his workshop, but you kinda have to when someone says that right? It was amazing at first, all these bits and pieces of shinies he was taking apart to make the little woof-woofs and meows he sells, they were all sooo cute! But I wasn’t supposed to be there… I was rolling and playing before some weird papers with scribbles fell on me, and when I looked at them something happened.
    Something inside me burst into a million pieces and I couldn’t move until Snow found me. I’ve never seen him cry Dee, but it’s all he could do. He never shouted at me or told me I was bad, he just kept hugging me and saying sorry.
    One of those fragile pieces got much, much bigger that day.

Chapter Eleven - Sanguine
     
    Machinations never did quite find the same appreciation for water humans were so well known for, probably because it could kill them, but at least partially because its very nature went against their own. The tide waxes and wanes, the ocean swells, and once upon a time even birthed life. The same life that went on to make them. To all but a few, thoughts of becoming a creator were horror stories of wiped memories and fragmented thoughts. As free as they were, they remained slaves to programming, dwelling on the devil in their data and fearing the excel spreadsheet that hides under their beds.
    For the few that faced demons greater still, however, it was an escape. Ironic as the steel it was built upon then, that the chronicle of Old Francisco, born from the structure once called 'Suicide Bridge', would continue to hold onto death; living patrons be damned. Dozens every day, two-fold by night. The number rose as the years did, and soon bloomed a deadly reputation to match. Those who could not take the world as it was, those who were lost without their masters, and those who had forgotten them completely. All manners entered the peaceful marina, and only one rather rude one expected to return.
    If forced to pick sides, Mercury would sooner turn to genocide than suicide. She entered this watery coffin with more than a mere plan up her jumble of cloth. She’d get to the underwater laboratory, called 'The Hatchery' during its better years, and 'Holy Shit' during the present, at least by the one person aboard who actually knew where it was. Several miles west and many more down, the ruins stood brightly lit, beckoning from a sea floor awash with well-whittled bones.
    Yet, they faced the initial problem of actually moving in a direction other than down, a problem becoming more and more pressing as Rain insisted she could probably have a quick lick outside the bubble and be fine. Slightly wiser in the ways of the world, Modbot did what he could to convince her otherwise. Indeed, no easy task.
    Mercury, in the meantime, gently pierced the outer lining with a small rectangular device that whirred to life the instant it felt the cold embrace surrounding them.
    Despite a round of shock and confusion, she hushed the group and watched the device with a nervous intensity. Finally, a stream of energy shot out from it with the kind of force that can call out a jet engine as limp and in need of erectile assistance. They