Workmates?

Recruitment

10:40PM
The City - approximately 2 kilometers away from The Spire

N walked among the ruins that remained of the once so beautiful city that had once been here. Now, after the core collapse, nothing but debris and tall abandoned building corpses were scattered all around him. The crunching of his footsteps in the snow echoed among the empty street that he'd chosen to walk down. Snow was softly falling ontop of his head, yet that didn't really matter at the moment. He was troubled by something else. Something... way more serious than a little bit of snow on his head.

N thought back when he and V separated. It wasn't an official goodbye, as he just kinda left by jumping out of a window and running far, far away from the building. He knew V had broken down in the snow. He knew she wasn't doing well, yet N didn't bother to check on her. After all, she did get mad at him and damaged his structure critically. To him it felt like she'd brought this abandonment upon herself. It wasn't his problem anymore.

Every now and then a car wreck covered deeply in snow lined the side of the street. N remembered how he'd used one of them as a shield to prevent being hit by direct cannon fire. During that day V had also hurt his feelings, yet she didn't seem to realize. N sighed loudly and crossed his arms. The temperature had suddenly dropped. He felt that something was off. Now being almost near the city center, the moonlight wasn't reaching the street anymore. The high-rise ruins had cast enourmous shadows over the streets.

The farther he'd gone into the city, the darker it had gotten... and the quieter aswell. The howling of the blizzard had almost completely seized. His surroundings suddenly felt eerie... dark... and creepy. N didn't like it here. He REALLY didn't like it here. As he inspected the ruins closely, he noticed that these buildings were way more destroyed than the ones near the spire. One building held itself up only by a single connection beam to another building. It surprised N how these constructions hadn't collapsed yet.

Then suddenly a loud thump startled him. N couldn't make out who or what just landed near him,because whatever it was, it had thrown up a large cloud of snow, masking it's entrance. The disassembly drone changed his right hand to a sub-caliber machine pistol for self defense. "Wh... Who's there?!" N called out, pointing the MP's muzzle into the center of the mentioned cloud. The silence pushed N's system into overdrive mode and he began firing his entire magazine into the cloud. The projectiles tore through the airborne crystallized water and dragged some of the snow particles along, creating a small line of view through the cloud for a split second.

After firing a total of 60 projectiles the barrel of the rifle was visibly smoking in the cold air. N kept pulling the trigger, only to hear an unfamiliar clicking noise coming from his weapon. Since N wasn't really a fighter, he didn't know that this meant that everything stored in the gun was now gone and that he had to reload. "Woah there N... calm down." A familiar voice said. Through the cloud's curtains stepped H with a slim grin displayed on his face. "You know that that clicking noise means that your magazine is out of bullets right?" He said nonchalantly, whilst pointing at the machine pistol.

Now embarrassed but also quiet startled N swapped the weapon back to his regular hand. "What are you doing here H?" The disassembly drone asked immediately without a stutter in his voice. N knew this drone was up to something bad. "Oh I was just passing by, when I saw you..." He fixed his gaze onto N. "...aimlessly wandering around these streets." H stopped walking and opened one of the pockets on his long black coat. He pulled a shiny metal box out and opened it. "Want one?"

N looked at what H was talking about. Cigarettes. "No. Thank you." N replied sternly, taking a step back. H raised one of his eyebrows and shrugged. "Your Loss... Anyways, back to what I wanted to talk to you about... Why are you here? Did something happen back at the colony?" H watched N closely and noticed him opening and closing his mouth before answering. "Not exactly at the colony." N replied, feeling a little uneasy now.