By the time the settlement guards noticed her, Vlasta had already crossed most of the open ground between the road and the outer barrier.
She came in from the west under a flat afternoon sun, six and a half feet of matte black armor moving at an even walking pace through the dust. The suit had none of the clean symmetry of parade equipment and none of the decorative shaping that might have suggested who was inside it. Its torso was built from overlapping angled plates that locked across the chest and abdomen, the surfaces pitched to turn incoming fire rather than present anything broad and flat. The pauldrons were wide enough to alter the silhouette of the upper body without becoming cumbersome, and the limbs were covered most heavily around the joints and forward-facing impact zones, with softer black sections filling the gaps where solid plate would have restricted movement. Nothing on the suit carried a flag, serial, unit marking, painted emblem, or readable insignia. Whatever had once been there had been sanded, burned, or painted over.
The helmet drew the eye first. Its face was a hard arrangement of sloped surfaces narrowing toward a pointed nose, less like a mask than a wedge built around a skull. The visor was dark from the outside. No eyes showed through it. No mouth grille moved when she breathed. A rechargeable HUD battery housing sat integrated into the rear assembly, half hidden beneath the heavy black tactical pack mounted against her back.
The machine gun was in her hands. One of the guards raised his rifle. Vlasta stopped.
The UHM-22 looked too large to be carried casually by anything on two legs. Its square perforated barrel shroud enclosed a finned twenty-two-inch barrel, the weapon built thick through the receiver and reinforced around the grip and stock. Beneath it hung the metal box containing the ammunition belt, making the entire assembly deeper and heavier than most rifles before accounting for the anti-materiel cartridges inside. The gun was not pointed at the guard. It rested across Vlasta’s front at a low angle, muzzle toward the ground, her right hand around the grip and the left supporting its weight as though it were an ordinary service weapon.
The guard held his rifle higher anyway.
“Stop there.”
Vlasta was already stopped.
The second guard looked from the machine gun to the helmet, then down the rest of the armor. He seemed to be searching for something familiar enough to tell him what kind of person had arrived. There was nothing. The armor erased waist, chest, hips, and most other hints of anatomy beneath layered plate and impact padding. It could have contained a man, a woman, or some narrow machine built to imitate either.
“You here to trade?”
Vlasta looked at him.
The first guard shifted his feet. “He asked you a question.”
Her helmet remained pointed at the second man. Several seconds passed.
The second guard glanced at the first. “Probably.”
Vlasta started walking again.
“Hey.”
She stopped.
The first guard took one step forward and reached toward a welded steel arm bolted across the entrance. The barrier was already closed. He placed his hand on it as though demonstrating that fact.
“You don’t just walk in.”
Vlasta looked at the barrier. Then she looked at him.
The visor stayed black and unreadable, but the angle of the helmet remained fixed long enough for the guard’s hand to slowly leave the steel.
“Need to check weapons,” he said.
No response.
“Settlement rule.”
Nothing.
The second guard rubbed his jaw. “She’s not leaving that thing here.”
“Then she doesn’t come in.”
Vlasta continued looking at the first guard.
There was no visible impatience in her stance. No tapping fingers, no adjustment of weight, no threatening rise of the machine gun. She simply stood at the barrier while the settlement’s rule existed in front of her.
The first guard looked at the UHM-22 again. Then at Vlasta. Then back toward the settlement.
“Magazine out?”
The second guard gave him a look.
“It doesn’t have a magazine.”
“Whatever. Ammo box.”
Vlasta did not move.
The guard swallowed.
“Fine.”
He pulled the release pin from the barrier and dragged the arm aside. Vlasta walked past him.
The tail became visible once she cleared the gate.
It emerged from the armor below the rear torso plating through a fitted segmented opening, long and muscular, moving with a slow balancing motion behind her. At first glance it could have been part of the suit, some flexible counterweight or armored cable sleeved in synthetic skin. Then sunlight struck it.
Purple rolled across the scales. Not painted purple. Not metallic paint. The scales themselves were black until the angle changed, and then an iridescent violet sheen traveled across them in bands before disappearing again. A child sitting beside a rain barrel stared openly. An older man pulling a cart stopped with one hand still wrapped around the handle.
Vlasta kept walking. The settlement occupied a former industrial service yard and several adjoining buildings, all of it enclosed with stacked concrete blocks, welded vehicle panels, and lengths of old fencing reinforced wherever somebody had once discovered a weak point. Most of the traffic ran through a broad central lane. Food stalls, fuel drums, repair benches, water tanks, and ammunition cages clustered where people could watch one another conduct business.
She did not inspect houses. She did not study faces. She did not look at the watchtower, the hand-painted signs, the communal fire pit, or the faded mural somebody had preserved along one wall. She passed all of them without slowing.
A long counter had been built beneath a corrugated roof, with sacks stacked behind it and plastic bins arranged according to whatever inventory system mattered to the people working there. Dried beans. Grain. Salt. Preserved meat. Hard vegetables that could survive transport. Wrapped ration blocks with military printing still visible beneath newer labels.
Vlasta stopped in front of the counter. The man behind it looked up. His eyes traveled from helmet to armor to weapon and then back to the helmet.
“What do you need?”
Vlasta stared at the shelves behind him. He waited. She remained motionless.
The man followed the direction of her helmet. “Food?”
No response. Vlasta looked at him. He leaned back slightly.
“All right.”
She reached over her shoulder, unlocked one strap from the transport pack, and pulled it around far enough to open the outer section. The movement exposed more of the pack: heavy black fabric, reinforced seams, compression straps pulled tight around a frame designed to sit flush against the armor rather than swing loose while running. Several attachment points had been modified to anchor directly to the back plate.
She removed a folded piece of stained paper and the man looked surprised. Vlasta placed the note on the counter. It held quantities rather than sentences.
Dried protein. Salt. Grain. Water purification tablets. Dense food that would not spoil quickly. No sweets, no alcohol, no fresh produce, nothing that would take up pack space without providing enough calories to justify it. The man read the list twice.
“You want all of this?”
Vlasta looked at him.
“Right.”
The people nearby gave her room without being asked. Some watched discreetly. Others did not bother hiding it. The machine gun had most of their attention, but the tail kept stealing it back whenever the sunlight caught the scales. A woman carrying a crate slowed, looked at the purple shimmer, and changed course enough to pass several feet farther away.
The food seller returned with the first bundle and set it on the counter.
“Payment?”
Vlasta opened another pouch. She placed a stack of local trade notes down, then several old metallic coins, then two small sealed boxes of factory-produced medical sutures. The seller’s eyes paused on the sutures.
“That covers more than the food.”
Vlasta waited.
“You want change?”
Nothing. The seller counted again. He set three smaller notes on the counter and pushed them toward her. Vlasta packed the food.
The heavy items went close to the armor. Dense ration blocks were fitted around the lower interior. Grain filled space where the pack could compress around it. Salt and tablets disappeared into smaller pouches where they could be reached without unloading everything else.
The three notes remained on the counter. The seller looked at them, then at her.
“Your change.”
Vlasta closed the pack.
“Hey. Your change.”
She looked at the notes. Then at him. He pushed them closer. Vlasta stared.
The man frowned. “You overpaid.”
She continued staring.
His expression changed slowly from concern to confusion, then from confusion to the realization that the obstacle was now him.
Vlasta hesitantly took the notes with a motion almost resembling annoyance, placed them in the same pouch as the rest of her currency, and moved on.
The water station occupied the shadow of a concrete building where three elevated tanks fed a row of taps through improvised filters. Vlasta joined the line.
Six people stood ahead of her. She took position behind the last and remained there with the UHM-22 held across her body.
The person immediately in front of her looked over one shoulder and nearly stepped out of the line before deciding not to make the movement obvious. The line advanced. Vlasta advanced.
A teenager at the tap filled two plastic jugs, turned, saw her, and tried to carry both at once rather than make a second trip. One jug slipped against his knee. Vlasta’s tail shifted half a foot to keep it from striking her armor as he recovered it.
He muttered an apology. She did not look at him.
When her turn came, she unslung two collapsible containers from the transport pack and placed them beneath the tap. The attendant reached for one.
“I can-”
Vlasta looked at his hand. He stopped. She filled both containers herself.
The water added significant weight to the pack. The suit did not visibly settle under it when she lifted the containers into place. She cinched the compression straps tighter. Then she moved toward the repair stalls.
A mechanic had claimed the open side of an old loading bay and filled it with bins of bolts, electrical connectors, bearings, lengths of hose, scrap plate, wiring, sealants, hand tools, broken optics, stripped motors, and enough miscellaneous hardware to rebuild several vehicles badly or one vehicle well.
Vlasta stopped at the edge of the work area. The mechanic was busy arguing with another customer.
“You brought it in cracked.”
“It wasn’t cracked.”
“It’s cracked now.”
“You dropped it.”
“I put it on the bench.”
“You threw it.”
“I did not throw-”
Vlasta waited. The mechanic noticed her halfway through the sentence. The other customer noticed her immediately afterward. Their argument stopped. Vlasta walked to the bins.
The mechanic cleared his throat. “Looking for something?”
She began searching. He watched her lift a small spool of high-temperature wire, inspect the markings, and return it. She checked several packets of electrical contacts, two small couplers, a sealed tube of lubricant, a bundle of heavy stitching cord, and a roll of black tape. She took replacement buckles from one bin and ignored cheaper polymer versions beside them in favor of machined metal pieces.
“You repairing the armor?”
Vlasta did not look at him.
The mechanic stepped closer to inspect one of her choices.
“You don’t want that sealant. It goes brittle below freezing.”
She stopped. He picked up another tube and set it beside her hand.
“This one.”
Vlasta read the label. She took it. The mechanic appeared encouraged.
“You running powered joints in there?”
She looked at him.
“No?”
The visor remained on him.
“Unpowered?”
Nothing. He glanced at the thickness of the armor. “Jesus.”
Vlasta resumed searching. He walked around the workbench, trying to get a better look at the rear assembly.
“Custom frame?”
She stopped. The mechanic stopped too. Her helmet turned toward him. He had moved behind her. Not close enough to touch the pack, but close enough that he could have.
The mechanic raised both hands slightly. “Just looking.”
Vlasta stared at him. He stepped back around the bench. She continued. Her list of repair materials expanded as she found useful pieces. Replacement MOLLE panels ripped from damaged armor carriers. Stainless locking pins from ALICE assemblies. Small ceramic insulation sheets. A tube of dielectric grease. Two small rechargeable batteries compatible with her helmet’s electrical system. A packet of gasket rings. Several pieces of abrasion-resistant metal.
The mechanic totaled the items.
“That all?”
Vlasta looked far past him at a locked steel cabinet. He followed her gaze.
“Ammo?”
She looked at the cabinet.
“Big stuff?”
Nothing.
He scratched the side of his face. “Rifle?”
Vlasta slowly rotated the UHM-22 enough for him to see the belt box hanging beneath it.
The mechanic looked at the box. Then at the receiver. Then at the barrel.
“Right.”
The ammunition section was behind a second barrier farther into the loading bay. Most of it consisted of common intermediate cartridges and pistol calibers stacked in mismatched boxes. Larger rounds occupied a reinforced shelf near the floor.
The mechanic crouched.
“Fourteen-five, twelve-seven Soviet, twelve-seven NATO, some old twenty mil that I wouldn’t trust in anything I wanted to keep.”
Vlasta’s helmet turned a few degrees.
“Right. Twelve-seven Soviet.”
He pulled out one sealed tin, then another.
“How much?”
Vlasta held up two fingers, and the mechanic nodded. She lowered her hand immediately.
He looked at the gesture, then at her helmet.
“You really don’t like talking, do you?”
Vlasta stared at him. The mechanic gave a short breath through his nose and looked away.
“Fair enough.”
Vlasta set the UHM-22 upright beside her leg, released the magnetic retention mount on the rear of her armor, and lifted the weapon over one shoulder. The machine gun met the back plate with a heavy metallic contact and locked into place. The system took the weapon’s weight without a sling, holding it vertically along the armor beside the transport pack, muzzle angled above her shoulder and ammunition box secured close enough to avoid swinging.
The mechanic stared.
“That is a hell of a magnet.”
Vlasta opened her pack and reorganized the load to make space for the ammunition. One of the settlement guards appeared at the loading bay entrance. Not one from the gate.
This one wore a better plate carrier and carried himself like somebody accustomed to being obeyed. He spoke quietly to the mechanic first, though his eyes remained on Vlasta.
The mechanic answered in the same tone. The guard walked closer. Vlasta continued packing.
“You carrying live belt-fed ammunition inside the walls?”
She secured the first tin while the guard waited.
“Talking to you.”
Vlasta fitted the second tin against the pack frame. The guard stepped into her field of view. She stopped. He stood there. She looked at him.
“You can’t walk around here with a loaded heavy machine gun.”
Vlasta continued to stare.
“This isn’t optional.”
Nothing moved except the faint correction of her tail behind one armored leg. The guard reached toward the UHM-22. Vlasta’s left hand closed around his wrist far faster than anyone would have guessed it could.
There was no flourish to it. No sudden posture, no dramatic shift of weight, no winding motion before contact. One instant his arm was extended toward the gun and the next his wrist was enclosed in a black armored hand.
He stopped breathing for a moment. Vlasta looked at him through the dark visor. The mechanic went very still. The guard tried to pull back. Her arm did not move. His shoulder moved instead.
“Let go.”
Vlasta remained exactly where she was.
The guard’s face reddened. “I said let go.”
She stared at him. The mechanic spoke from behind the counter.
“They haven't hurt you.”
The guard looked toward him.
“That’s not the point.”
“You grabbed their gun.”
“I was securing it.”
“You were grabbing their gun.”
Vlasta released his wrist. The guard stumbled one step backward because he had still been pulling against her grip. She returned to the pack. The guard rubbed his wrist.
“You cannot carry that weapon loaded through the settlement.”
Vlasta tightened one strap.
“You understand me?”
She tightened another. The guard moved in front of her again. Vlasta stopped. He pointed toward the gate.
“Unload it or leave.”
She looked at him. He pointed again. Vlasta continued looking at him. The mechanic shifted his weight behind the counter, apparently deciding whether he wanted to remain nearby for whatever happened next.
The guard pointed a third time.
“Gate.”
Vlasta raised one hand. For the first time since entering the settlement, the motion was plainly communicative. She pointed at the two ammunition tins now secured inside the transport pack.
Then she pointed at the UHM-22 on her back. Then she looked at the guard. His face changed when he realized the weapon had never been loaded. There was no belt feeding into the top cover.
The ammunition box mounted beneath it was empty. The guard lowered his hand.
The mechanic looked down at the counter to hide the beginning of a smile. The guard stood there for several seconds longer, now occupying the exact position that prevented Vlasta from reaching the next row of shelves.
She stared at him. He eventually stepped aside. Vlasta walked past.
The next stalls were smaller and less organized than the mechanic’s, pushed into whatever corners of the old loading complex had enough roof left to keep inventory dry. Vlasta worked through them without any visible hurry. A table of respirator cartridges and salvaged filtration media held her for several minutes while the seller tried to determine what she wanted.
“Industrial? NBC? Smoke?”
Vlasta looked at the cartridges.
“I’ve got particulate, organic vapor, combination filters, some military surplus if you’ve got the right threads.”
She removed one of her helmet's spare filter cartridges from a pouch on her pack and placed it on the table.
The seller picked it up and frowned at the custom design. He turned it over, examined the coupling, then looked at the pointed helmet.
“You could’ve started with that.”
Vlasta waited.
The seller dug through a crate beneath the table and produced three cartridges with compatible threads. Two were visibly old. Vlasta took the third, examined the manufacturing marks, checked the seal around the housing, handed it back in an imperceptibly unsatisfied manner, and left without saying anything.
At a neighboring table she bought waxed cord, heavy duty tape, several heavy needles, and a handful of stainless steel clips. The woman running the stall spent most of the transaction asking questions Vlasta answered by placing objects on the counter.
“You need the wide tape or the narrow?”
Vlasta put the wide roll down.
“Black only?”
Another black roll joined it.
“Anything else?”
Vlasta looked toward a clothing rack with randomly shaped MOLLE paneling.
The woman followed the helmet.
“Webbing?”
Vlasta stared.
“What width?”
She took a damaged panel from the side of the transport pack and laid the frayed section beside the rolls.
The woman stared at it for a moment. “You know, normal people use words.”
Vlasta waited. The woman found the matching width.
“Normal people also don’t carry whatever the hell that is.”
The UHM-22 remained fixed to the magnetic mount on Vlasta’s back.
The woman cut several meters of black webbing. Vlasta paid without ceremony.
“Pleasure talking to you.”
Vlasta packed the material, either unaware of the shopkeep's annoyance or simply uncaring about it, and left for the next task.
The chemical supplies were farther from the main lane, stored in the coolest intact portion of the industrial building where sunlight only reached through a narrow row of dirty windows. There were no open flames nearby and no children wandering between shelves. Metal cabinets lined two walls. Plastic drums and sealed steel cans occupied the floor, most marked in grease pencil rather than printed labels.
Vlasta filled the doorway. The seller looked up from a ledger. A younger worker was sorting small bottles into a crate beside him. An older customer stood near the opposite wall with a five-liter fuel container resting beside one boot.
“What are you after?”
Vlasta walked to the solvent shelf. The seller waited until it became apparent that she had no intention of answering.
“Cleaning solvent?”
She examined several containers.
“We’ve got kerosene, alcohol, acetone, brake cleaner, some reclaimed chlorinated stuff I wouldn’t breathe unless somebody paid me.”
Vlasta stopped at a row of unmarked metal cans.
“That’s acetone.”
She looked at him.
“Mostly.”
Her helmet remained pointed at him.
The seller frowned. “What?”
Vlasta picked up one of the cans.
“That’s good stock.”
She turned it slightly and examined the seam.
“Recovered from a composite shop before it got stripped. It's clean, promise.”
Vlasta set the can down and looked at the seller. He stared back.
“It’s acetone.”
Nothing.
“What do you want me to do, drink it?”
Vlasta continued staring. The older customer smiled faintly to himself.
The seller exhaled through his nose and came around the counter. He opened the steel cabinet beneath the solvent shelf, took out a smaller glass bottle, and set it down.
“This came from the same drum. If you’re worried I’m cutting it, there.”
Vlasta picked up the bottle. She held it close to the lower front of her helmet. Nothing changed. She held it there again.
“It smells like acetone because it is acetone.”
Vlasta examined the bottle, then the helmet’s lower intake. The filters were doing exactly what they were designed to do. Her hands moved to the base of the helmet.
The younger worker stopped sorting bottles.
Vlasta released two locking catches beneath the jaw, then another behind the neck. A sealed collar separated from the lower edge of the helmet with a quiet mechanical release. She disconnected the electrical lead at the rear, took the helmet in both hands, and lifted it clear.
Everyone remained silent.
Her face had the same deep black scales as the tail, though under the dim industrial light the purple iridescence appeared only where the light from the windows caught the edges of her cheek and brow. The structure beneath them was angular and unmistakably alive, neither a mask nor synthetic covering. Gold eyes narrowed into vertical pupils against the change in light.
The seller’s arms slowly uncrossed. Vlasta looked at the bottle and her nostrils moved once. She loosened the cap, brought the opening near her face, and flicked a forked tongue through the air above it.
The younger worker took half a step backward. Vlasta sampled the air again. The tongue disappeared and she recapped the bottle.
Vlasta picked up the larger can and set it on the counter in front of him. Nothing happened. Vlasta looked at the can, then at the seller.
His eyes remained on her face. She looked at the can again. The older customer cleared his throat.
The seller blinked. “Right.”
Vlasta placed the helmet back over her head, and the collar settled into position. She connected the rear lead, locked the neck catch, then the two beneath the jaw. The visor darkened as the HUD came back online, replacing the visible gold eyes with the same blank black surface everyone outside had seen.
The seller looked between the helmet and the solvent.
“Right.”
He checked the price and Vlasta paid. The younger worker was still staring.
Vlasta packed the can upright near the center of the transport pack, tightened the surrounding straps, and checked that nothing could shift against it.
The seller finally found his voice again.
“So that’s real.”
The older customer waited until the sound of her armored steps had moved several meters down the corridor.
“Well.”
The younger worker looked at him. “Did you see the tongue?”
“I saw it.”
The seller closed the cabinet.
“That was a woman.”
The older customer looked toward the doorway.
“How the hell would you know?”
The seller hesitated.
The younger worker said, “Face looked like one.”
“It looked like a snake.”
“It looked like a woman and a snake.”
“That clears it up.”
The seller rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Whatever. You both saw it.”
The older customer picked up his fuel container.
“I saw something.”
“You saw exactly what I saw.”
“I saw an armored person take off a helmet.”
“With scales.”
“Yes.”
“And eyes.”
“Most people have eyes.”
“Not like that.”
The older man left with his fuel. By the time Vlasta reached the main lane, he had already told someone.
She stopped at a battery stall where rows of rechargeable cells sat inside wire racks with handwritten voltage markings attached to them.
The seller was testing one with a meter. Vlasta placed a very damaged helmet battery on the counter. He looked at the battery, then at her, then toward the industrial building behind her.
“Oh, shit.”
Vlasta waited. The seller glanced toward another man sitting behind the stall. The second man shrugged and the seller picked up the battery.
“Need another?”
Vlasta put a second visibly damaged battery on the counter.
“Two.”
He found a smaller diameter but compatible cell and checked the terminals.
“You want used or new?”
Vlasta looked directly at the new stock.
“Expensive.” The seller said it with a tone that indicated he really, really didn't want to sell them.
She waited.
“All right.”
The seller unpackaged and tested two cells and placed them beside the old one.
Someone passing the stall slowed. “That’s it.”
The seller looked up. “What?”
“The snake.”
Vlasta continued examining one of the batteries through her helmet, unaware of the concern others were displaying.
The passerby stopped completely.
“I heard they took the helmet off.”
The seller looked at Vlasta.
“So did I.”
The passerby stepped closer.
“What’d it look like?”
Vlasta looked at the battery seller.
The seller looked back at her and neither moved. The passerby lowered his voice without actually becoming quieter.
“Guy said it had a mouth full of teeth.”
A woman sorting electrical cable at the next stall turned around.
“I heard fangs.”
“Same thing.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Vlasta placed the tested battery beside the second.
The seller realized she was waiting.
“Both?”
She looked at him blankly.
“Right. Both.”
He put them back in their original package and taped it shut. The passerby was still staring at her helmet.
“You got a face under that?”
Vlasta turned toward him. He smiled innocently. The black visor remained fixed on him.
“What?”
She continued staring. The smile quickly faded as the seller slid the batteries across the counter. Vlasta turned back, paid, and placed them into a small pocket in her pack.
The passerby timidly moved away. The woman at the next stall watched him go.
“Idiot.”
Vlasta continued down the lane. The story traveled faster than she did. At the medical counter, two women were arguing over whether the face had been human underneath the scales.
“I’m telling you, he said it was normal except for the eyes.”
“He also said it had a snake tongue.”
“People can have weird tongues.”
“Not like that.”
Vlasta placed a small box of sterile gauze on the counter. The medic behind it stopped listening to the argument and looked at her.
“What do you need?”
Vlasta added adhesive dressings.
“Medical?”
She looked at him. He looked at the gauze.
“Obviously.”
Vlasta selected a small bottle of antiseptic solution. The two women behind her continued talking.
“They said the armor’s empty.”
The other woman stared at her.
“How would the armor be empty?”
“Machine.”
“It took its helmet off.”
“Could still be a machine.”
“With scales?”
“Synthetic skin.”
Vlasta took two packets of clotting gauze. The medic cleared his throat.
“You planning for trauma or routine maintenance?”
She continued examining the shelf.
“Trauma.”
No response. He gestured toward a sealed military IFAK.
“These are better if you’re dealing with deep wounds.”
Vlasta picked it up, checked the expiration date, and put it back with what could be construed as mild disappointment.
Behind her, one of the women whispered, “See the tail? That’s not synthetic.”
“You don’t know that.”
“It moved.”
“Machines move.”
Vlasta looked at a row of splints. The medic watched the helmet.
“So was it you?”
She looked at him. He lifted both hands slightly in an unanimated shrug.
“Forget it.”
Vlasta returned to the medical supplies. She bought gauze, clotting agents, disinfectant, burn dressings, electrolyte tablets, and several broad elastic wraps. She ignored painkillers entirely.
The medic packed everything into a tired-looking canvas bag.
“You know people are going to talk about you for a year.”
Vlasta looked at the bundle. He pushed it toward her. She took it.
At a hardware stall, the shopkeeper became visibly irritated within the first minute. Vlasta placed an old bolt on the counter.
“I need the measurement.”
She pushed the old bolt closer.
“I can measure it, yes, but you could also tell me.”
Vlasta stared.
“Fine.”
He checked it against a thread gauge. Vlasta waited.
“Metric?”
She continued waiting.
“Yes, obviously.”
He found a box beneath the counter.
“How many?”
Vlasta pointed at the damaged bolt.
The shopkeeper closed his eyes briefly.
“That tells me size. Not quantity.”
She put enough currency down to cover four of them.
The shopkeeper looked at the notes briefly. “Are we really doing this?”
Vlasta stared at him, following his movements with her visor. Someone at the end of the stall leaned toward another customer.
“That’s the one.”
The shopkeeper heard him.
“What one?”
“The viper thing.”
He looked at Vlasta again.
“The what?”
“They saw its face.”
The shopkeeper looked toward the dark visor.
“Who did?”
“Chemical store.”
The other customer said, “Guy said purple scales.”
“The tail’s purple.”
“Black.”
“Black and purple.”
The shopkeeper returned to the bolts.
“So what?”
“They said it’s female.”
Vlasta continued waiting for the four bolts. The shopkeeper paused and looked at her, then at the two customers.
“How would they know?”
“Face.”
“That’s not how that works.”
“They saw it.”
“They saw a face. Did the face come with paperwork?”
One of the customers laughed dryly. The shopkeeper counted four bolts into a small, worn plastic bag and put them on the counter.
Vlasta added two steel rods she had picked up.
“You couldn't have done this sooner?”
She stared at him. He sighed.
“Right.”
He added them to the total.
By then the story about her had divided into versions.
One said the armored stranger was a reptilian woman with gold eyes and venom dripping from her teeth. Another said the entire person was some kind of machine covered in artificial scales. A third maintained that the helmet had never come off and that the chemical seller was making things up to attract customers. Someone else claimed Vlasta had bitten the cap off a bottle of industrial solvent and tasted it directly.
The younger worker from the chemical store tried correcting that version, but nobody listened to him.
“She didn’t drink it.”
“Didn’t say she drank it.”
“You said she tasted it.”
“She used her tongue.”
“To smell it.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if you’re a snake.”
“She’s not a snake.”
“You weren’t there.”
“I saw the tail.”
“So?”
“So people don’t have tails.”
Vlasta passed within five meters of the argument carrying another bundle of supplies, but they didn't notice.
At the next stall, a man selling portable stoves and fuel canisters noticed immediately. He watched her approach with the expression of somebody who had been waiting for the opportunity.
“You really got scales under there?”
Vlasta stopped in front of the fuel canisters. He leaned on the counter.
“I’m just asking.”
She looked at the canisters.
“Because people are saying things.”
Vlasta examined a compact stove. The man grinned enthusiastically.
“One guy says you’ve got yellow eyes.”
She checked the fuel connection.
“Another says you’ve got four.”
Vlasta set the stove down. The man's shit-eating grin weakened.
“You understand me, right?”
She looked at him.
“I mean, you have to.”
Nothing.
“You want that stove?”
Vlasta looked at the fuel fitting. The seller followed her gaze.
“Standard thread.”
She picked up one of the matching canisters.
“Yeah. Those.”
Vlasta put three on the counter.
“You buying the stove too?”
She looked at him.
He looked at the stove still sitting in front of her.
“Right.”
He began totaling the purchase. Someone behind Vlasta whispered, “Ask them to take the helmet off.”
The seller immediately shook his head. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not stupid.”
Vlasta paid, and the seller pushed the supplies across. She quickly and efficiently packed them. He watched her secure the stove to the outside of the pack.
“So is the story true?”
Vlasta looked at him. He held the stare for perhaps three seconds before looking away.
“Never mind. Doesn’t matter.”
She walked away. The load on her back had become substantial. The transport pack had expanded as far as its compression straps allowed, black fabric pulled tight around food, water, ammunition, medical supplies, tools, repair material, chemical containers, filters, batteries, and fuel. The UHM-22 remained locked vertically beside it. Nothing rattled when she walked.
The armor did not change pace.
Near the center of the settlement, the same child who had watched her enter now stood with two others beside the rain barrels.
One of them pointed at her tail.
“That’s real.”
The first child nodded.
“My dad says it’s a machine.”
“It’s not.”
“How do you know?”
“It has a face.”
“Machines have faces.”
“Not snake faces.”
Vlasta passed them. The third child watched the purple sheen travel across the tail in the sunlight.
“My brother says it’s a girl.”
The first child considered that.
“How would he know?”
“He said somebody saw.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
Vlasta kept walking. One of the original guards at the entrance was talking to a trader when she returned to the outer barrier. He saw the machine gun first, then the packed transport bag, then the tail.
His attention stayed on her helmet. The second guard noticed.
“What?”
The first leaned toward him.
“You hear about it?”
“Hear about what?”
“The face.”
The second guard looked at Vlasta. She stopped at the closed barrier. The first guard lowered his voice.
“Chemical guy says they took the helmet off.”
The second guard glanced toward the settlement.
“And?”
“Snake.”
“You can see the tail.”
“No, I mean the whole thing.”
Vlasta waited. The first guard continued staring.
“Gold eyes.”
The second guard reached for the barrier release.
“People have weird eyes.”
“Forked tongue.”
The release pin came free.
“I don’t care.”
“They’re saying it’s a woman.”
The second guard dragged the steel arm aside.
“How would they know?”
The first guard looked at Vlasta again. She looked at the opening. He realized he was standing partly in it and stepped aside.
Vlasta walked through. The first guard turned as she passed.
“Hey.”
She stopped. He looked at the helmet. For several seconds, it appeared he might actually ask, and Vlasta waited. The second guard watched him.
The first guard looked at the black visor, the pointed helmet, the broad pauldrons, the machine gun fixed against the rear armor, and the heavy transport pack carrying enough supplies for a long stretch away from settlements.
He changed his mind.
“Nothing.”
Vlasta continued walking. The barrier closed behind her. Inside the walls, the arguments continued.
The chemical seller swore the scales had been black until the light hit them. His younger worker insisted the tongue had never touched the solvent. The older customer told everyone who asked that he had seen enough strange things in his life to know when three people were about to remember the same event differently.
At the battery stall, someone claimed the stranger had taken the helmet off because the filters had failed. At the medical counter, someone else said the stranger could smell blood through walls.
The hardware shopkeeper told them all to shut up and buy something.
Outside the settlement, Vlasta stopped once.
She shifted the transport pack higher against the rear armor, tightened one compression strap, checked the magnetic retention on the UHM-22, then adjusted the position of the water containers so their weight sat closer to her centerline.
Then she kept walking.
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