There’s a bone-rattling splash.
A ripple of silence.
Then—
BZZZT
A factory buzzer blares.
The grinder kicks on.
The tank churns.
The blades spin.
Skippy’s body is dragged under, sucked into the machinery like a sacrifice to the gods of processed sausages.
We watch?—
all of us, enemies, and allies and Nerdy McNerdykins?—
as the tank grinds him into a bubbling pink slurry.
Shoes.
Suit.
Rotting flesh.
Bits of swollen anatomy I refuse to identify.
And—just to make this the worst possible reality—Saint’s sunglasses go in too.
The mix funnels down a chute and slides through a quality-inspection scanner.
A cheerfulpingsounds.
A green light flashes as a sign lights up:
PASSED.
I look down at Saint.
She looks up at me.
Shared disgust.
Shared trauma.
Shared what-the-actual-fuck.
We don’t even get a chance to breathe.
Because the world snaps backinto motion?—
attackers screaming, weapons firing?—
and the fight explodes into full throttle all over again.
