IN THE WET BY KONDORU

Standard Disclaimers

Thanks to TJ for Betaing.

Rain beat down upon the beach shack, a relic of happier times.

Inside a scrawny teenage girl was curled up in a ragged blanket. She was cold, wet, and thoroughly miserable.

"Come on, Lyuze," she growled, "You're a robot!" She tailed off in a fit of coughing. Like all modern robots, she extracted oxygen to use a fuel from the air. This worked very well, until she got fluid on the lungs from the damp.

She was wet, and cold, her body was not working as optimally as it should have, and she was sluggish and had aching joints. Though waterproof, Lyuze was feeling horrible. She hadn't been dry in what felt like ages.

Next to her, Ringo and Friender lay entwined, twitching in electric dreams. Lyuze blinked at Ringo, the little girl had a perverse attraction to water; Lyuze had gotten wet though several times trying to fish her charge out of the Dihydrogen monoxide.

"I keep on warning her that electronics and water don't mix." Lyuze said to no one in particular.

Presently there was a stirring.

"Lyuze..."

Lyuze peeped out from under the blanket, "Oh, go away, Ringo." she growled.

Ringo gave a hurt look. "You're mad at me?"

"Why don't you go and find us some wood? I'll light a fire." Lyuze tried to smile.

Ringo thought that a great idea. She scrambled out of bed, "come on, Friender!"

Now they would be warm.

Lyuze often wished for the warmth of a hostel back in the city where she had been built. She had never been cold or wet then. She could walk out in the rain in rubber boots and a cagoule, delight in its beauty and the fresh scents and then return to a snug hostel room to dry off.

Liza had loved the rain.

Lyuze screwed up her eyes and whimpered.

Humans had a contemptuous term, `Machina Ferox` Feral Machines, for robots which had been built by other robots, they had no design by humans. (Pretty much everyone these days.)

It had a more literal meaning in these times of darkness...The robots life was now a simpler, almost human one. They camped out where they could, and kept on the move, trying to find a place free of Ruin...To no avail.

Now she lived in the wasteland. It was safer. Cities were too full of bandits these days.

Lyuze had no home. She had slept in ditches, in drainpipes, in ruins, even, morbidly in the massive armoured bodies of dead battle bots. Pretty much anywhere that offered shelter from the elements.

She got by.

Though Lyuzes body was getting cranky, she had no real sign of the Ruin yet.

Hers was a moral decay.

(Lyuze looks into a tarnished mirror, she is unable to meet her own gaze.)

She had killed.

(A robotic head crashed to the ground. The light in its eyes dying.)

Only in self defence, of course, but it always frightened her, that she had become no better than That Monster.

(Unbidden, a picture of a blank face, with glowing azure eyes came into her head.)

She had killed and would kill again.

(Another image, that of a figure grovelling in the dirt, mud spattering his white catsuit, screaming his agony to the uncaring sky…)

In these drear lands fire was often the only comfort.

(Lyuze and Ringo are sat by a campfire, opposite them, Casshern crouches, just at the edge of the firelight. He doesn't dare get any closer though it is obvious he would like to share the warmth too. His gentle eyes are full of a sadness as deep as the sea.)

Lyuze always made sure she had some method of making fire. Both in her pouch and in a waterproof container she kept of a cord about her neck which never left her person. When you were warm and dry you could move so much faster...It could mean the difference between life and death in a battle.

(There is a clattering and crashing of machines being forcibly smashed, a big battlebot screams in fear as he is systematically disembowelled…But Lyuze cannot see if the figure doing the demolishing is clad in white or black.)

And wet causes rust.

(Lizas arm drops off, rust splotches spreading like a fungus.)

Another thing not to think about.

Lyuzes life had been devoid of any meaning other than pure survival until she had met Ohji and Ringo.

The dour old robot had dedicated his life to making Ringo happy...Even in this miserable existence.

What was more. He could to a limited extent stop the Ruin, even repair damaged robots.

Clearly a guy worth getting to know.

And there was a puzzling connection between him and Lyuzes best enemy. Casshern.

So Lyuze and Ohji had teemed up. Rather loosely.

Lyuze helped defend them from bandits, and in return Ohji had given her the first overhaul she had experienced in ages.

Ringo helped lighten Lyuzes soul. Instead of constantly brooding on fighting and death, now Lyuze could begin to enjoy life again. Ringo was delighted with Lyuze as a big sister. She thought Lyuze was beautiful. Lyuze had always been the rough tomboy; it had been Liza who was the beautiful one. Lyuze didn't care less.

Now Liza was a pile of scrap...And Lyuze was alive, a bit battered, maybe but compared to some of the walking piles of junk she had had the misfortune to see...Lyuze had vowed to go out fighting.

At the back of her mind was the unwelcome thought that the mysterious Ringo was no robot...At least, no robot that Lyuze had ever met.

She wasn't a human, she didn't eat, and her body language was unlike that of any human Lyuze had known. (This really was not many. Humans tended to keep to their own lands, far away from their conquerors.)

But she could cry, bled when scratched and healed up.

Something about Ringo reminded her of Casshern.

Lyuze shivered. This time in rage.

Casshern! That monster!

Many a sleepless night she had spent in thinking up worse and worse fates for the being who had destroyed her world...And sister.

Several times Lyuze had him at her mercy, all her being urging her to kill, to destroy this monster which had taken a beautiful world and turned it into Hel.

But she had let him live...It was agreed that Casshern should learn of his sins...which were manifold.

Lyuze slept, mercifully without dreaming.

Presently she awoke. Lyuze sat up, cocking her head. She had been awoken by the rain on the tin roof easing up.

She checked her internal clock. Mid morning. (If time meant anything in this dead world.)

And where were those two?

"Probably mucking about." Lyuze climbed stiffly out of her sleeping pit, she scratched at her matted head, pulling down clothing from where she had hung them out to dry last night.

Still wet. Oh, joy.

Lyuze gave yet another of her patented unhappy expressions. She could no longer take having dry, unragged, clean clothing for granted.

She now looked like one of those wretched humans her sister had been so fond of.

How her sister would have laughed...Lyuze must be the only person in the world to have greasy water repellent (Friender was regularly rubbed in it, but it invariably got off on everyone around him.) stains in her underwear.

At least it was not rust.

It was not rust...

...But Ohji, who in many way was more streetwise than even the resilient Lyuze regularly dabbed rust upon them. "Safest when we meet other robots." he had shaken his head sadly.

"Urgh! The stench of death!" Lyuze had protested. Beside her, Friender was shaking his head in disgust; trying to get the vile smell out of his finely calibrated nose.

"Yes. It's safest."

"Safe! I for one want to smell sweet!"

She had laughed at Liza when she had rubbed herself in flower oils...Liza had said that Luna liked the smell of flowers and not of plastics, metals and electronics which a robot smelt of.

Now that smell was the best of all; It meant you were free from Ruin...

Lyuze pulled a face. "Please, no! We will all smell of Ruin sooner or later...why now?" It reminded her too much of Liza's death.

Ohji had folded his arms, he looked so pathetic. "If you smell of Ruin it's less likely some thug will attack you for spare parts!" He gestured to the grotty blanket that he now wore about his shoulders. "I like to keep myself clean...We all do. But things have changed...It's now the robots who can adapt who will live longest."

Lyuze had agreed. (Even though she felt like telling her companion that she could fight her way out of pretty much any situation) She too had noticed it was the robots who went on as if nothing had happened who died of Ruin...Or who fell prey to bandits and breakers.

She had rubbed dirt in her hair and on her face, and donned the sacking robe of a penitent.

She trudged along with downcast eyes and bent back.

Even Friender had been partially wrapped in grey bandages; he bore a pannier set on his thin back containing Ohjis tools. The robot dog entered into the deception, instead of trotting on confidently, he now slunk along as if he feared a beating, tail between his legs.

They now looked like human beggars; Some lords of the Earth they had become!

But Ohjis disguise had worked; There were indeed battle bots stomping about, but they paid no heed to Ohji and his two miserable companions.

Ohji was searching for a rumoured store of spares.

Alas, as ever, it was only a rumour. They were losing hope.

Afterwards Lyuze had given both her body and clothing a scrub as it had not had in what was probably like years.

But she was befouled inside.

Lyuze pulled her clammy clothing on with many a grimace; she left off her boots though. They were saturated, and she was not going far.

She poked her head outside. Yes, the rain had stopped, to be replaced by drizzle.

It gets worse...

Lyuze scanned about; Ringo was nowhere to be seen. Friender was 100 yards up the beach, industriously reducing a lump of hardwood to sawdust.

And...

Slop. Slop. Slop.

She walked to the waters edge over a patch of wet rippled sand.

There. She grabbed two familiar ankles and dragged a partially buried body out of its wet hole, and up beyond high tide mark. Evidently he had been there the last tide...or several tides.

Cassherns head lolled, nose ploughing a furrow in the wet sand.

"Stop trying to drown yourself in your own tears!"

Lyuze went in further search for the errant Ringo.

Fifteen minutes later Lyuzes feet were numb all over again, she still had not found her quarry.

A laugh came from over the sand dunes.

Lyuze began running over the ridge. "Ringo!" she called.

Ringo was sat by a muddy dune slacks, making mud pies.

Lyuze crouched down, shivering. She glowered at Ringo, who grinned nonchantly back. "What did I tell you?"

Ringo laughed again. Lyuze stood up; mud seeping nastily in between her toes. "Come on."

Together they walked back to the beach.

"And where's your clothes?" Lyuze asked. For the now streaked with mud Ringo was naked.

Ringo gave a grin that in someone older would have looked malicious. "You told me not to get them wet. I left them in the hut." She explained patiently.

"Now, get that mud off of you, and we will try to get dry...Again." Muttered Lyuze, scowling at the horizon.

Ringo washed off the mud in the sea. Laughing all the while, but particularly at her companions grim looks.

Lyuze sighed, she squatted down. "On my shoulders."

Ringo laughed even more, and climbed up.

Wet seeped though Lyuzes T shirt. Grimly she strode along the beach. "Friender!" she called.

Friender left off his wood butchering and trotted up to them.

Lyuze trudged on; she was getting colder and number by the minute. Meanwhile Ringo chattered to herself, obviously oblivious to the wet.

"You did find some wood?" Lyuze asked wearily.

Ringo tugged unpleasantly at the robot girl's hair. "Silly Lyuze!" she chided, "I found big bundles! Biiiigg as I and Friender can carry!"

"Where did you leave them?" Asked Lyuze weakly. For all her little girl frivolity, it seemed Ringo was displaying a lot of sense.

She got a fist in her ear. "Outside the hut, silly!"

Lyuze walked on.

Ringo had been as good as her word; By the hut door was a big pile of wood, which Lyuze had missed when rushing out.

It was wet.

Lyuze lifted Ringo off her shoulders. "Is that it?" she asked.

Ringo looked sad. "There's nothing dry here. Let's take it in out of the rain." She picked up an armload and went in.

Lyuze gathered up the rest and followed.

Inside all was as she had left it. Lyuze dropped the wood by the fireplace and began to take off her wet clothing. Friender lay down, Ringo following. Lyuze glared at them both. She was feeling worse than ever. True, she now had fuel, but it was in no state to burn.

"But If I carve off the outer layer..." Lyuze picked up a likely piece, sliding out her wrist blade, she began to whittle. It would look like she had a longer wait than anticipated for her fire.

Lyuze let her attention wander.

Her eye was caught by the blanket...Bunched up, something, or somebody was under it, and she thought she could put a name to that somebody, a very unpleasant name.

"Casshern! What are you doing in `my` bed?"

Her nemesis rolled over and regarded her with expressionless blue eyes. Casshern said nothing.

"Oh, ok." Lyuze muttered under her breath. She kicked aside her jeans and burrowed in next to the assassin. Lyuze was a pragmatic. Casshern had warmed and dried the bedding, she fully intended kicking him out.

But he was so warm...

When Ohji came back, He found Casshern blocking the door, Friender and Ringo snugly tucked in between his legs. Meanwhile a shivering Lyuze was sat wrapped up in the blanket.

The Ex professor shook his head sadly; "Really Lyuze, you should share the blanket with your friends."