Fan Fiction ❯ Rose Petals ❯ Marda: Best Gunsmith in Euteka ( Chapter 3 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

The roads--if you could even call them that--were entirely clear minus a select few. As said before, no one really worked that day. Nobody protested it, either, since they too wanted to watch the horrible man known as Kimbley get what he deserved. Unless absolutely nesscary, nobody worked.


Nobody except Marda. Similar to Kimbley, no one knew her last name--or even if her first name was her real one. What everyone did know was that she built guns better than anyone alive. What everyone also knew was she held no loyalties to anyone, made guns for everyone, and could be found wandering just about anywhere.


It seemed just something people knew and had come to accept. As long as she made guns for them too, all was well. But in her line of work, she naturally knew people. LOTS of people. Many of them were men who tried to weasel their way into her fancy. She was a rather pretty young woman (in her late 20s one would guess), with her light blue hair and dark blue eyes.


For the time being, she was content to sit outside the small dinner in her oil covered overalls and stare at the clouds. Her eyes blinked, then moved to the side at the sound of the bike loudly approaching.


The bike sputtered and popped, clearly not running in the best condition as it banked out around the corner at breakneck speed. Breakneck for sure; by the looks of it, the boke might fall apart if it hit a bump and send its passengers splattering across the pavement. One of the occupants, the one in the sidecar, seemed perfectly aware of this as he clutches to the sides of the metal pod, face slightly white. It looked like he was shouting at the blonde boy driving the bike, but the roar of the motor and the hiss of steam drowned the words out.


With a certain touch of inevitability, their was a decidedly loud 'BANG!' as something in the bike gave out. Fortunately, the machine didn't flip, catch fire, or explode dramatically, but it did putter to a slow stop right in front of the veranda of a small diner.


"Oops," said Caff, immediately monkeying off the bike and retreating to the compartment laid into the tail of the bike. Flipping it open, he began tinkering with the interior. He seemed used to this sort of thing.


"That's a crappy piece of machinery you've got there," Marda pointed out, suddenly leaning over him. Guns were her main line of work. However, she was prone to building others thing. Rumor even had it she'd built an andriod for Colonel Hanson Mark. Which is partially where the rumors of Kensa being one came from. But perhaps those were all JUST that: Rumors.


"You want me to take a look?" she questioned, smiling in a sort of eerie way. She always looked a bit creepy, and always so serious. A truly strange individual, and one among many. Her expression looked a bit confused suddenly. "Do I know you from somewhere?"


Caff jumped nearly two feet in the air, cauterwalting away a few steps in surprise before he seemed to realize that the woman who'd surfaced seemingly out of nowhere wasn't pointing a gun at his head. Sal, who had seen the woman approaching from where he sat in the sidecar, offered the blonde boy a self-satisfied, poetic-justice kind of grin before turning his attention to the woman. "You're Marda, right? Make guns? I think we've been in your shops once or twice."


"Oh, hey yeah," Caff chirped, swarming closer to get a better look at the woman. "Yeah, definitely. I'd remember a smokin' babe like you, and you definitely seem familiar."


Sal rubbed at his temple and bit the inside of his cheek in exasperation.


"That's interesting..." With a surprising amount of strength, Marda knocked the teenager away from the bike and took to examining it herself. While most of her skin was smooth (albiet pale), her hands held many scars and scratches that were clearly visible as she lifted them to tinker with the machine. Many moments went by before she finally pulled back, stood up, and gave the thing a good kick. It burst to life, though the sounds didn't near qualify as steady.


"I could have sworn you were gay," she said, and apparently that was what she found 'interesting' as opposed to the machine. "Best that you can do with it, I'd say. You should look into getting another or something." As if just realizing something, she raised an eyebrow and gave them a weird look. "What are you two doing out HERE today, anyway?"


Blustering and looking more than slight indignant with the accusations, Caff gabbered for a moment or two in an attempt to locate a witty comeback (a large failure, on his part) before lapsing into silence. Under the rev of the bike's engine, the two males exchanged a subtle glance with one another.


"Couriers," Sal supplied, as if that alone was a sufficient answer for the question.


"Broke couriers - need all the work we can get, y'know?" Caff supplied hastily in order to cover the lack of explination Sal had offered.


"You must be to be working on a day like today," Marda commented thoughtfully, and sounded more like she was talking to herself than them. She glanced down the road and sighed heavily as the sounds of roaring engines were fast approaching. "Looks like everyone's clearing out from that execution." How dissapointing.


Pointing over her shoulder with her thumb, she smirked and offered, "Let's get some food. I'll pay."


"We're actually a bit bus--"

"Sweet, food. Come on Sal, get out of the ugly sidecar before you get stuck there. You didn't jam your knees in the front again, did you? I don't want to have to cut you out again, dammit." Grinning brightly at the mention of food, Caff flipped the switches of the bike. It shut down with a pop and a clank. Glaring sheepishly, Sal extricated himself (with a bit of trouble) from the seat and staggered out onto the pavement.


"Ignore him," Caff said. "He's just a grumpy old man. You know how that is."


A smile graced Marda's face, slightly creepy as all hers were. It was almost a haunted look. Perhaps caused by doing what she did: Build things, over and over, that would just be used for murder. On the other hand, perhaps she did that because she was alright a bit loose in terms of sanity. Like pretty much everything in the currently chaotic land, no one could really know for sure.

-------------------------

A few seconds later, the three were seated in a booth, Marda on the opposite side of the two males. She didn't even bother glancing at the menu, staring at the window as people began to arrive. "You're not vegetarians or anything, right?" she asked as the waitress made her way over to them.


"Hell no," Caff spoke out loudly, already playing with his and Sal's silverware that had been laid out by a waitress who knew how many hours previous. Sal smacked his hands away and took his utensils back.

"We can't pay for this, you know," Sal pointed out suddenly. Caff glared at him, the boy bristling visibly.

"Caff!" he hissed. "You're not supposed to say that now."


"It's fine," Marda insisted. "I've got it, like I said." She leaned back in the booth, placing her arm on the end and looked up to the waitress, "Just give us three Toku steaks and water. Hurry up, now," she demanded, watching as the woman hurried off into the kitchen to alert the chef. "It's hard to find good help these days, I guess."


It was also hard to find clean water out in these lands. Toku, also, were becoming particularly hard to come by. The birds were interesting looking brown creatures with particularly long tail feathers. No one knew how, but it was discovered they tasted quite good. Thus, extinction in the near future was far from an unlikely thing.


"So," Marda grinned, drumming her fingers gentle on the table. "I take it you watched that guy get blasted in the face, judging by the direction you came from."


"Toku--?! Sweet." Apparently steak was a commodity with the two. Caff pulled the salt and pepper shakers to him, tinkering with them absentmindedly as Marda spoke. "Yeah, we saw it. Well, Sal did I guess. Some fucking tall guy was infront of me, so all I saw was the back of his ugly hea-- OW."


Sal let his hand drop back to the table once he'd given the back of the blonde's head a good smack. "Sorry," he said, clearly not to Caff. "He's an idiot."


Marda laughed and shook her head, but who could tell exactly what prodded her into such a motion. Her eyes looked rather sad suddenly, narrowing on the sky through the large window beside them. "Between you and me, I don't think that man did it. But he was an easy one to blame, seeing as he was leader of those rebels and all... The military gets scared of things like that."

Caff sobered suddenly, lips pursing as he restored the salt and pepper shakers to their proper place. Sal eyed Marda openly, features and eyes hard as if making a point not to take notice of the blonde's sudden silence. "Yeah," Caff murmured quietly. "Maybe he didn't."

Marda's smile returned and she laughed lightly. "Oh well, enough of that," her voice chimed. "Hopefully things can get back to being okay around here again, and the higher ups can focus on the Waste Lands."

As cruel as it may have been, when you thought about it, the 'Waste Lands' were the recent title given to the place and places around it. The water wasn't clean, most of the animals had died, and people were starting to fight among themselves. Murders were at an all time high, and most of them weren't with guns.


Sal quickly took up the new vein of conversation, as if to cover for the teen's lapse of sobriety. "Hopefully so; God knows there's plenty to be done around here for them. If they'd stop killing one another and think about other things for a change, we'd all be better off."


"Well, can't say I can completely agree," Marda offered. "No violence puts me out of a job." She took the time to eye them both, and her eyes sort of sparked upon the examination of Caff. With no reguard to personal space, she reached over the table and brushed the hair away from around his forehead. Another laugh and she fell back in her seat, shaking her head. "I see you ran into Kensa. I bet you didn't even notice that gunned burned you, did you? Not surprising. She uses it so much it's always hot. I can't believe it's held up that long, and I'M the one who made it."


His hands clapping to his forehead, Caff started slightly when his fingers found the burn mark. He really hadn't noticed... Selfconsciously fingering the red ring left by the muzzle of the gun, Caff watched Marda warily. "No ma'am, I didn't," he muttered, flushing and looking awkward and a little disturbed. He glanced searchingly in Sal's direction, squirming slightly where he sat. He wasn't sure even Toku steak was worth this. She was...odd. And frankly, he didn't really want to know where Crazy Kensa had got her gun from.


"I suppose," Sal said at length. "That's a testament to your craftsmanship."


"Perhaps it is," Marda agreed distantly. Her eyes seemed to fade. "Kensa uses her guns too much, and doesn't seem to use her head at all. I think that's why no one can be sure if she's human or not. She doesn't move like one, but you'd think some sort of robot could think things out more than she does. Then again, perhaps they can't program her to do so and not fear being destroyed. It must have been such a pain for Colonel Mark's wife. Kensa started working for them just as they got married." She looked as if she'd say more, but there'd be no chance to for now.

--------------------------

The doors suddenly burst open, two men in masks entering with large guns held under their arms. "Everybody down!" one shouted. Robberies were pretty much native to the Waste Land, the biggest problem being there was barely anything to steal to begin with.


"Today's not our day," Caff muttered and, with a sigh, he clambered down under the table of the booth they were occupying. Glancing to Marda once, Sal quickly joined the blonde under the table. He'd managed not to get shot through the forehead once today, he'd rather not risk it again.


"Dammit," Caff growled, peering to the doors and the theives. "I hate robberies. Always so damn high and mighty, like there's anything real useful for them to fucking ste--"


Thwack. "What did I tell you about swearing?" Sal demanded. Caff rubbed the back of his head.


How bothersome, Marda thought, glaring at the two men warily. This place probably had barely anything in it, anyway. The only places that did were in the 'Main Grounds', and good luck robbing from a place the military basically controlled...


From under the table, Sal quietly began to rummage through the satchel from where he crouched, wedged almost against the wall due to Caff. "Caff, trade me places," he said carefully.

"Wha, wh--Aw, Sal, do you have to? It's just two punks." Nonetheless, the blonde carefully slid himself back, pressing himself against the seats of the booth so Sal could take his place at the edge of the table. He shoved the satchel between them. Two guys, out in the open. Granted, they had guns, but they probably weren't looking for anyone in the diner to draw one against them. Most people in the Waste had come to terms with this sort of thing, and so long as it wasn't threatening them or their property, it wasn't their problem.


"No," Marda mumbled. He doesn't have to...


BANG! BANG! The eruption of noise came and died out quickly, followed by the noise of two bodies hitting the floor. The bullets had gone through the back of their heads, it seemed. Children burst into tears, adults gasped and there were some shouts and screams of fear.


Sal had the gun half cocked when the job was done for him. Quickly, he slid the gun back into place. Just because more than half of Waste owned a gun, it didn't mean they were all legally owned. Permits were mandatory. Neither Caff nor himself had one for the gun he was now carefully sliding into the bottom of the messenger satchel. Caff quickly grabbed the bag and stuffed it behind him, suddenly very quiet as Kensa came into view.


Kensa stepped into the place, gun pointed upward. As she looked around, she placed her foot on the back of one of the corpses. Silence. The officer smiled brightly. "I hope you all enjoyed your meals."


"Marda!" the teenager then squealed in delight, kicking the corpse out of her way and rushing over to the woman. "I'm glad I found you! Colonel Mark was looking for--" Catching sight of Sal and Caff, she paused shortly. "You really shouldn't communicate with EVERYONE you know." She shrugged her shoulders and waved her gun around carelessly. "Oh well, I guess that's to be expected from someone like you. Whatever the case, we're leaving now."


Under the table, Caff and Sal exchanged a swift glance. 'She knows that psycho for real?' Caff mouthed silently in the older man's direction. Sal shrugged; it was possibly he hadn't even understood what the blonde was trying to say. Wordlessly, Marda stood and followed Kensa out. Before leaving, the pink-haired girl leaned back in."Don't worry, someone will be by to get the bodies in just a little while. Have a nice day!"