Chapter 18: Black Rain
"Commander! Commander?!"
"Lao Zhuang, stop playing dead, you motherfucker! Get over here and look!"
The frantic voices of her sisters pulled Lorna from her distant reverie, dragging her back to this foul wasteland.
"I haven't cracked yet..." she rasped. They helped her slump back against the truck bed. Her left hand still held a cigarette, while her right remained an unraveling mess of bloody neural threads. Blue veins throbbed violently across her pale face, making her look half-mad.
Her neural overdrive a moment ago had drained every drop of her mental energy; for the moment, she lacked even the strength to reel her right hand back in.
Lorna took a slow drag of her cigarette. "Didn't make it to heaven. Still stuck in the Sludge Pond District. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"
Seeing that their commander could still joke—that she had actually pulled through—the female mercenaries finally let out a collective breath. A ripple of soft laughter passed through them.
All around the convoy lay total devastation. The Sludge Gang had lost no fewer than twenty men, and anyone left alive had gone completely insane.
The Game Gang crew, thick-skinned and tough, had fared better. A few were injured where the Mutant had overturned their pickup, but none had died. Brother Zhuang stumbled out from the sea of trash, joining his men to heave the truck back onto its wheels.