"We could have gone to Zorarber," IT muttered. "I don't have any women's clothes because I don't bend that way."
After pushing her way through the mob, Kaluki followed her strange companion back to the giant spaceship thing, now cleverly disguised as a massive brass bear with a door built into its backside.
Inside the bear, there were clothes all over the place, but the selection was lacking. Dirty, and mainly designed for a larger person, she found herself frowning at the only things that seemed remotely wearable, a Kansas Jayhawks shirt and a pair of jogging pants that hung around her body like a loose sack. She wore this over her silks, of course, for she wouldn't be caught dead changing in front of him.
"We could go shopping if you want," the man said.
"There are people dying," she groaned. "Where's your boots?"
He pointed around a mound of soiled laundry and old pizza boxes. "Somewhere in there."
Looking disgusted, Kaluki pulled aside a pile of shirts.
When a little eight eyed head popped out, she screamed.
The thing looked like a rat, but it shared many attributes with spiders and cockroaches.
Without a word, IT whipped out a box cutter and stabbed it to death.
"If you think getting rabies is bad..."
He pulled out a pair of wrinkled brown work boots out of a nearby mound, throwing them to her.
Kaluki picked up a pair of wide pants, frowned, and tossed them aside. "When all of this is over, I want some threads. Apple Bottom, GAP, Marshalls, whatever. You're paying."
"I don't have any money," IT complained.
Kaluki gestured to the piles of junk. "Then what's all this? Surely you just didn't find all of it."
"It's complicated."
"No. It's quite simple. You're stingy."
"You know, I don't have to be nice. I could just throw you out and let the Cybermen cut your brain out of your skull."
She shuddered. "You wouldn't!"
"I know," he smirked. "I'm just saying. Give me a little credit, okay?"
IT sighed. "Sorry. I'll get you something when we're done."
He loped up to the console, activating light up menus and screens. The whole room shook, and Kaluki fell backwards into a pile of unsavory debris.
She cursed and jumped to her feet, brushing an unidentified brown liquid off her pants. One of her hands felt sticky with something she figured she didn't want to know about. The glop refused to come off, no matter how many times she wiped it on her pants.
"You're a real slob," she said. "You know that?"
"You're welcome to clean up, any time," he smirked.
Kaulki rolled her eyes. "What am I, your personal maid?"
The room shook again, this time with a loud bang.
"There. We should be in the middle of Bartle Convention Center."
Kaluki hurriedly marched to the door, throwing it open.
She was greeted with a blast of hot wind that sent chip bags and papers and empty soda cans flying every which way.
What she saw outside made her suck in her breath.
She was not in Bartle Auditorium with its campers and quilt exhibits or what have you. She was actually on the roof, hundreds of feet above a cluster of intersections crowded with wrecked cars and the glittering forms of stocky chrome robots.
She saw a fat hand reaching past her, pointing to the first in a row of massive concrete pillars. Along one side, she could see the tiny metal rungs that maintenance used to fix the lights of the garish hair curler things positioned at their summits.
"The Sky Stations are up there. I'll get you a climber's harness and some tools to disable the cyber machines. I'd give you explosives, but we need to keep the lights to warn the airplanes."
Kaluki shuddered. "Oh hell no!"