“You’re buying my next meal.” Kou’s voice, a dry rasp against Tarkis Lorn’s ear, vibrated through the info-broker’s collarbone. Tarkis choked on dry spit. He smelled of recycled air and fear. The grimy hand that held him was surprisingly firm, a vise that promised painful adherence. Kou’s chin grazed Tarkis's crown, exuding the reek of dried grease and mineral paste.
“Anything, anything!” Tarkis blurted, his voice a frantic squeak. “Just… not here, not out in the open! There’s… eyes.” He gestured vaguely with a trembling hand towards the general squalor of the Rustborn Enclave, as if countless unseen Mecha-Enforcers were poised to descend upon their illicit discussion of lunch.
Kou merely grunted, releasing Tarkis with a dismissive shove that sent the smaller man stumbling forward. “Fine. Where’s the best soup? And don’t tell me it’s the nutrient paste rations. I just ate a month’s worth.”
Tarkis, scrambling to regain his footing, pointed a shaking finger toward a rickety stall listing precariously on warped ferro-beams. A plume of greasy steam billowed from its corrugated tin roof, carrying the faint, alluring scent of rendered animal fat and over-boiled noodles. A rusted plate above the counter read ‘Zhaxin’s Kettle’. “The kettle! Best in the sector! Fresh from reclamation tanks, thrice-filtered, they say!”
Kou simply nodded, already striding towards the stall, leaving Tarkis to scurry in his wake like a nervous rodent. Rinzen Vael, still kneeling in the dust beside her ruined silver rig, looked up as Kou passed. Her visor slid back, exposing damp cheeks and unblinking reverence. “Grand Commander! May I accompany you? I crave guidance even in simple deeds, like selecting broth!”
Kou didn't break stride. “If you want to guard my mech while I eat, fine. But don’t talk about ‘enlightenment’ near my food. It taints the flavor.”
Rinzen’s eyes gleamed with what she clearly considered profound understanding. “Understood! True cultivation demands silent discipline over one's bowl! I shall defend your iron steed with my life!” She rose, a figure of gleaming determination, and took up a vigilant stance beside the multi-ton wreck Kou had crippled earlier, mistaking it for Kou’s own.
Kou settled onto a dented cargo crate that groaned under his bulk. Tarkis fidgeted opposite him, tracking pedestrian boots across the scrap-strewn lane. The proprietor, a stoic woman with a scarred face and an apron stained with decades of broth, slid a menu across the counter. Kou ignored it, pointing a finger at a steaming vat. “Double portion of the ‘Rusted Gut’ Special. Extra noodles. And whatever that is,” he added, indicating a pile of fried, vaguely insectoid fritters.
Tarkis swallowed hard. “Serve him all of it. A small cup of plain broth for me, please. No fried mash.”
Minutes later, Kou became an engine of timber picks and gulps. Basin after basin of wheat shreds, heavy with grey suet and brine tasting faintly of hydraulic fluid, vanished down his gullet. Tarkis watched, mesmerized and horrified, as the stack of empty bowls grew taller than his head. Each time Kou scraped ceramic bare, he clattered the dish into a rising tower and gestured toward the drum. The cook ladled out another without looking up.
Just as Kou embarked on his fifth bowl, a sudden, piercing blare echoed through the enclave. A sapphire projection hummed to life above the thoroughfare, resolving into the sharp jaw of Magistrate Vorstag. His broadcast voice resonated between corrugated walls. “Attention, citizens of the Rustborn Enclave. Effective immediately, Sector Gamma is under emergency lockdown. Atmospheric spore particulate levels have exceeded acceptable parameters by three hundred percent.”
Muffled curses rustled through the crowd. People stopped haggling, their faces, visible through the clear visors of their mecha-helmets, reflecting a mixture of fear and weary resignation.
“All non-essential movement is hereby restricted,” Vorstag continued, his holographic eyes sweeping over the crowd. “All personnel are advised to remain within sealed cabins or scrubbed depots. Compliance is mandatory. Further instructions will follow.” The light sputtered out, leaving stagnant quiet.
Kou paused mid-chew. “Another bowl,” he said, rapping the timber slab.
Before the cook could move, an iron screech rang from the chassis Rinzen guarded. Three scavengers in welded boiler-plate loaders had clamped pry bars against the hatch of Rinzen’s silver battle rig. Faded orange spray paint marked them as the Scrap Jackals. Rinzen, standing protectively near Kou’s *actual* disabled mech, glared at them, utterly ignored.
“Out of the hatch!” the lead scavenger barked through a rasping horn. “That chassis is high-grade alloy. Our boss takes salvage rights!”
The lead machine reached hydraulic jaws toward the latch. Rinzen drew her dagger. “State property, scum! Defended under command of my senior!”
“Your senior eats dirt!” the second pilot laughed, driving an iron heel into the shattered knee joint of the walker Kou had smashed. Shock rattled through paving stones and struck the timber counter.
Kou dipped his utensils until the third machine swung a crane-hook to clear Rinzen away. The iron snout clipped the awning support. Nine empty basins smashed against the dirt, and the fresh bowl jumped, dumping its oily stew across Kou's bare forearm and the mud.
Kou stopped chewing. His eyes, previously focused solely on his meal, slowly lifted. The alley quieted to the tick of cooling turbines.
“You spilt my soup,” Kou stated, his voice flat, devoid of emotion, yet somehow colder than the vacuum of space. He laid his wooden picks side by side along the rim.
Tarkis pressed flat against the partition. The raiders stalled. Their leader sneered through his grill, “Cry about your swill, vagrant. The hull is ours.”
Kou snapped the right pick between two knuckles and flicked his wrist. Splintered bamboo cracked the lead unit's transmitter mast. Sparks hissed; static shrieked out of the exterior horn and died.
The pilot swore behind reinforced glass. Kou whipped the second sliver. It drove four inches into the second rig’s central optic crystal, severing the fiber bundle in a squirt of pressurized fluid.
The crane-arm driver hauled back on his throttle to level the cookshack. Kou twisted his fingers through empty air. Buried splinters hummed with sudden internal resonance. Pressure lines burst along the loader frames; pneumatic rams convulsed. The first rig folded its own lifting clamp inward, crushing its right calf strut. The blinded unit spun in wild circles, spraying lubricant across corrugated sheet metal. The third machine's crane-jib seized, torquing backward until cast iron shattered and its operator screamed under buckled cabin bars.
All three units slumped in smoking ruin, broken entirely by their own overloaded servomotors. Kou picked up his now half-empty soup bowl, inspecting the remaining contents. He pinched one unbroken dough strand with his thumb and sucked it clean.
Tarkis Lorn, watching the display of impossible, silent violence, felt a cold dread seep into his very bones. This wasn't just a powerful man. This was an ancient ghost who crushed heavy hydraulics with slivers of wood and understood stress fractures better than a shipyard crane. He knew. He *knew* about Tarkis’s spy-com. He knew everything. Tarkis silently vowed to never even *think* about betraying this man, not if he valued his bones remaining on the inside of his skin.
The blue light burst on overhead once more, twice as bright. “Citizens, a new directive. Spore levels are escalating rapidly. Any individual found outside a fully sealed mecha suit or designated clean facility within the next local hour will be considered a contamination risk and will be… *terminated* to prevent further spread. This is a final warning. Preserve yourselves. Preserve Orox.” The beam snapped off, plunging the market into gloom.
Kou shoved his bowl across the grease. “Fill it again. And wipe this surface down.”
The cook reached wordlessly for her iron ladle. As she did, a violent cough wracked her frame. Her hand flew to her mouth, but it was too late. A thick, black, tar-like sludge, laced with tiny, shimmering motes, erupted from her lips, splattering across the pristine counter where Kou’s next meal was meant to be served. Her eyes rolled back, and she collapsed, a lifeless heap behind the steaming vats, her apron soaked in the glistening, deadly mutant spores.