Of course, to hear the peddlers talk about it, those were a hazard now. No one dared live within the ruins anymore. Not only was there the danger of radiation or disease, but Skyfall in the area meant something of a domino effect that brought the buildings down on the heads of those stupid enough to scavenge around the Cities-That-Were.
Or desperate enough, she reminded herself. Not everyone was lucky enough to be born in one of the bunkers or had the safety the folks in Sanctuary enjoyed. Despite all the things she’d been told about Outside, though, a part of her hankered after the wide-open spaces that seemed to whisper of freedom and adventure. It wasn’t the first time odd thoughts like this had intruded and she pushed it away. Her life was here where it was safe and she could contribute to something that was much more important than her childish imaginings.
"From the City-that-Was, do you think?" Jessica13 asked, her head tilted in thought.
"That's probably where they got all the firepower from, anyway," Lance7 said. "They liked to do all the manufacturing in those places before…whatever it was that happened. There were more people in the area so they could put in all the work the bosses wanted them to."
"How do you know that?" she asked.
"Read it in a book somewhere, I think," he replied. "Or maybe someone told it to me when I was little. All I could imagine was how cramped they had to feel with so many folks crammed into concrete slabs climbing up in the sky, and vulnerable too. Imagine living your life in one of those and then all of a sudden—boom, something falls out of the sky and your whole home, everything you've built for yourself, is gone in the blink of an eye."
"It sounds like you put some thought into this. I thought I was crazy, always thinking about how it was like, living in the Cities-That-Were."
"Sure, imagining the paradise folk had back then is nice to daydream about on a boring day," Lance7 said. "But if the stories we hear of the folk living in the Cities-That-Are is any indication—the fear of the Skyfall, the radiation, the poisoning, and the monsters… Well, I'm glad we have our Sanctuary here. Not all folks are so lucky."
"I was thinking the same thing," she said softly, still working on the mech that Jack5 had all but shredded. "It's nice to watch the Skyfall but having to worry about it falling on you? That's no way to live. And what about monsters?"
"Oh, I agree," the man said with a chuckle. "Think about how many bunkers there are out there in the Outside. Not many, from what I hear. But those buildings you see…they're only the beginning. There are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of Cities-That-Were that got destroyed by Skyfall over the years. They say there are even a couple they built under the great waters to try to escape the poison in the air."
Now there was a thought. Jessica13 could imagine what a city under one of the big waters would be like. She'd only seen pictures of it, of course—water as far as the eye could see. It was interesting to build a city under the water instead of a bunker under the mountain, but it was hard to believe that the poison in the air wouldn't poison the water as well.
There had to be monsters in the water too, and mountains protected far better against those.
"I’m sure my Mini could outrun and outlast anything out there," she said after a moment.
Lance7 laughed. "What makes you say that?"
"She's quick, and the core she runs on could last forever if you treat it right," she replied with full confidence. "And I know how to work her. Most of the other pilots say she's a piece of shit, but that's only because they don't know how to work her."
"I'll be honest, I've said that about the Argonauts a time or two," he admitted. "Not while A7 was listening, of course. But then you see one of those big bastards busting literal heads and you think twice about that."
"You call him A7?" She raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, he all but made it an official order to call him that in combat situations," he said with a chuckle. "He said Armstrong7 is too much of a mouthful when you're shouting enemy positioning and whatnot. I guess he has a point."
"I don't think I'd ever feel comfortable calling him anything other than Armstrong7, combat or no combat," Jessica13 admitted. She was all but finished with the mostly ruined mech, having placed most of it on the recyc pile. There were a couple of pieces that were functional and there was an interesting processor for the sensory systems that actually looked better than the one she had.
Thoughts of acting like the pirates and simply taking any piece she wanted and plugging it into Mini did occur to her from time to time, but they weren't pirates around there. They protected Sanctuary, and that came with certain rules, one of which was that it was a CO's job to divvy out necessary parts when they were needed.
It was a little restrictive—and frustrating—to know what she could do to make Mini better and not be able to do it, but that was one of the costs of safety. Rather than chafe under the limitations that constantly seemed to try to squash her into a mold she hadn’t been designed for, she ought to be grateful. The rules were there to protect them, and if that meant she had to give up certain things, it was worth it.
She glanced once more at the deceptively appealing view of the Outside but was distracted by the glint of metal at the edge of the
