Page 10 of Smart@ss Cyborg

How quaint.

Scattered around the wood floorboards are decorated porcelain shards. The remains of a tea set, I believe. Near the broken bits is a cast iron pan, which is an odd thing to see on the floor.

Above the stove, the newspaper clad wall is very slightly yellowed, save for the shape that would match the cast iron pan, leading me to conclude someone pulled it off the wall and somehow it was flung or dropped to the floor.

Not far from where I stand, there is a wooden table with two wooden chairs, set askew.

My attention is drawn back to the human woman when she begins whispering to the man she’s forcing her hands against.

“The pressure you’re applying,” I say, curious. “With your hands. You’re attempting to stop the flow of life from this homesteader’s wound, aren’t you?” I marvel. It’s just like the vids. Although I can smell his blood. I can’t smell the blood in the vids.

Paco’s hooves clop as he ambles over to the round table that appears to have been shoved against the wall. Items atop it mostly appear tipped over.

“My husband,” the woman starts, but she’s weeping with force. “He’shurt.”That’s all she manages to say, her voice choked with her broken cries.

She doesn’t have to say more though. The homesteader, her husband, is injured indeed. I’m watching the light wink out in her mate’s brain.

Oh, some processes continue to run, but they’re dimming. Because he’s dead.

The woman falls over him, sobbing.

Evidently Paco feels that adding to the woman’s misery is the proper response. This is apparent when he slowly clunks closer and drags his lips over her braid—then he bites it, sucking it into his mouth.

The woman makes a sobbing protest, trying to crumple forward more on her dead mate, as if for protection.

“Getout,Paco!” I order stridently. I don’t shout the command. I’m a Yonderin, usually in perfect control of my emotions.

The woman whimpers. She’s still pressing her hands over her dead mate’s wound, as if she has a chance of saving him if only she doesn’t give up her hope and effort.

I clear my throat, and my voice comes out quieter on my second try. “Paco. Get out,” I order.

When I reach out to catch his bridle, he swings away from my hand. Not just his head but his whole front half, spinning away so fast his front hooves come right off the floor.

More surprising than his quick avoidance of my hand though is the woman’s hard flinch.

I stare at them both. Curiously, in both their brains the same area is lit. It's the part of a lobe that prepares for an attack when beaten prey accepts that they can't escape.

Having no intention of attacking either of them, I cease moving in favor of watching.

Paco recovers quicker than the human. His ear, which had stayed fixed on my position, rotates slightly, and his head cautiously turns in my direction, the white of his eye showing as he peers at me.

With almost choreographed timing, the woman nearly does the same from the opposite direction.

I ignore the donkey and address the human female, drawing on more of my vernacular skills gained by way of popular Western Traxian vids. “Well, ma’am, it was awful nice meeting you.”

Her breath hitches and she sits up higher to watch me from out of both eyes. Her arms, blood soaked, are hugging her rounded middle.

“Do you want me to leave this man alive, or dead?” I ask, waving to the mute cowboy that I have mentally pinned in place on the other side of the room.

“He… he shot Joel,” she says in an odd, disjointed way. “He said… he was hired to kill my husband and deliver me to his… his boss.” Her eyes are glossy, the color of cornflowers.

“So this is a bad man?” I say, pointing to her husband’s attacker.

Jerkily, she nods.

“Want him killed?” I ask.

More firmly now, she nods again.

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