Songs: Radio Moscow - Bridges

"So, how long are we staying here?" I asked Moze while sorting out a few bags of potatoes. It was a really hot day and we had been carrying heavy sacks of rice, potatoes, flour, anything one could imagine.

"Dunno how long you're gonna stay here." Moze replied, chewing on her gum. She always seemed to have gum in her mouth and it was starting to get seriously grating. How she got away with that was beyond me.

"Well, how long are you gonna stay here?" I asked, not sure what she was getting at. She just shrugged.

"Probably a couple of months, honestly. You know you don't have to stay here with me, right? You can literally travel wherever you need to go without me. Anouk just sent me to babysit you for a while, but you'll be fine on your own, honestly." Moze answered, carrying two sacks of potatoes off.

Any of those things weighed like a ton. Every time she did that I was impressed at how quickly and efficiently she was handling them. I was honestly struggling, but Moze had an upper arm strength that I was honestly jealous of. I could only dream of being that strong some day.

"And you tell us that now?" I asked. Why didn't she say that earlier when I told her that we'd probably have to head to Arkalyk soon? She stopped in her tracks and looked at me shortly, before continuing on her way.

"Didn't think it needed to be said. I mean, honestly, you're not obligated to stick with me. You could have literally left the first night we were here. Like, I appreciate you helping me out here and all, but it's fine. Go where you need to go, I can handle this." she answered and dropped the bags out front where people were queueing up. The famine had apparently hit this place pretty hard.

"I guess we'll be looking into leaving for that place next. Are you sure you don't want us to stay and help out for a li-"

"HEY!"

I looked over to where Moze was standing and then everything happened really fast. There were gunshots and Moze came running back, hiding behind a wall and gesturing for me to do the same.

I had no idea what the hell was going on and who had just been shooting at us. Moze didn't seem to be in much of a mood to explain, as she frantically loaded up her gun. My hand searched for the gun at my side and quickly found it. I was shivering a little, being surprised by the sudden shots.

I had no idea why I was surprised. I mean, coming from Pandora, I should have been used to hearing random shots. The thing was that I had always been on high alert on Pandora (except that one time the bandits got me, but we don't talk about that). Here, everything had been fairly peaceful so far. Getting into a shootout all of a sudden wasn't really what I expected.

"Get your gun ready, there are some loyalist pigs trying to steal shit for themselves. They're probably going to go and sell it for exorbitant amounts on some black market." Moze grumbled and peeked around the corner. She quickly pressed her head against the wall again, as a gunshot came through the doorway.

"Fuck, there are four of them, two doing the hard work and two watching out. They've got a clear advantage." she explained. Shit, that was bad. We were basically completely unprotected out here.

"What about Iron Bear? Can you use him against them?" I asked. Moze shook her head quickly.

"Not unless I plan on bringing down the entire building." she replied.

"Can you use him as a distraction? Get into him and draw their attention, catch a couple shots, while I go and take them out?" I wanted to know. Moze was biting her lip and then nodded.

"Yeah, that might work. Don't take too long, Iron Bear's not the youngest anymore and I just repaired him, I can't afford more repairs for a good while." she said. I went through the whole process of hiding behind Iron Bear, taking a few quick shots and hiding again in my head and then nodded to Moze.

"Deal, let's do it."

Moze pushed a couple of buttons on her ECHO device and got up as soon as Iron Bear materialized around her. She stood in the doorway while I heard them starting to shoot at her.

"What the fuck is that?" one of them shouted. I rolled out on my side and stopped between Iron Bear's legs. I quickly aimed as well as I could and shot out the kneecap of the guy on the left. With my second shot I hit the guy on the right in his head. He dropped to the floor instantly.

The other guy was holding his knee and his hand was shaking but he still tried to aim at me. I quickly fired a few shots in the direction of his hand, hoping he'd drop the gun. And he did drop it. Right in front of one of the other guy's feet. I quickly got up, trying to make a run for the gun. But this guy was faster, since he just had to bend down and pick it up from the floor. He pointed it at me.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" I exclaimed. He gave me a triumphant grin and shook his head.

"I'm afraid not." he said, before shooting at me. It seemed to be the last bullet that was left. And he had fucking missed.

"You fucking dumbass. How did you miss that? I'm standing right in front of you." I shouted. I wasn't actually mad he missed me, but I had already been counting on at least getting a painful wound and being incapacitated for a while. I guess with all that tension gone, I just lost it a little.

"That's it. Put down any weapons if you want to live." I heard Moze calling out behind me. Iron Bear had dematerialized and she was standing in front of the guy whose knee cap I had massacred.

"Do we... arrest them?" I asked her.

"Depends on whether they're going to drop the fucking weapons." she answered, glaring at the guy with the gun and the other guy behind him who was holding a small knife. The guy with the knife dropped it first and held up his hands. He looked like he was still pretty young and scared.

I looked over at the guy with the gun in his hands. He had frozen. He was holding the gun that was now completely empty and was still pointing it at me, but he seemed unable to comprehend what was going on.

"This is taking too long..." I mumbled and got closer to him, driving my knee up into his stomach. I heard a few cracks which meant I had probably broken a couple of ribs. That wasn't the plan, but it would do. I took the gun out of his hands as he slowly sunk to the floor on his knees, holding his chest in agony.

"Nicely executed. I would have thought you might go for a kick, but that was badass, too." Moze replied.

"I'm not too far from turning 40. I can't kick that high." I told her with a smug grin on my face. Looked like I still had it.

"Alright, let's restrain these guys and hand them over to the local authorities and then we can get back to work. It's not like we have all day for this." Moze said with a sigh.