Fold and I take all the chips.

"How truly regrettable" I murmur with no hint of disappointment in my tone. In fact there's almost a hint of excitement, like I'll finally fulfil a lifelong wish or re-unite with a star-crossed lover. That's the amount of passion in my voice and the man seems to notice.

He quirks an eyebrow from where he is sitting on the throne. Then in the blink of an eye he's in front of me and his hand is coming towards my collar. I try to dodge but I'm just not fast enough and he grabs me by the collar before lifting me up by it.

That should be impossible. No primitive should be able to outspeed me or my old man. We're both trained from birth. This confuses me and I try to claw his hands around my collar. I end up scraping some skin off his hands and that gives me the answer I'm looking for.

"Oh" is the only sound I make when I notice. Where the skin was ripped off his hands I spot something glinting a dull silver. Looking closer is all I need to reveal exactly what shines like that. Explains why the junklads all have cybernetic implants.

"You're a cyborg then?" I ask animatedly my excitement growing. Yet my voice comes out raspy from lack of oxygen. He's holding me by the collar so obviously I'm lacking air. Still I'm excited for what comes next. It appears to confound the man as he has a puzzled look on his face.

"You don't seem shocked or scared by this revelation. Most would despair at the idea a cyborg has them in their grip. After all…" He trails off towards the end and as he does I feel his hand move from my collar to my neck and start to squeeze. The lack of oxygen only increases and I start to feel faint. Before I can actually faint however he stops squeezing and continues.

"I could crush your neck whenever I please." He states as though it's a fact of nature. As though this is his right. This however only makes me even more excited and my eyes start to sparkle. Much to the confusion of the person currently holding me by the neck.

"Thank you. I never had anything to aim for. I was just wandering. Just wanting to do something but not knowing what. Yet you showed me what to strive towards… Thank you old man." I rasp out the ending with a beaming smile before laying my hand on his chest like a lover might. Right over his heart.

My gesture is also of a loving nature. Like stroking a prized treasure or perhaps admiration of a particularly famous museum exhibit. Of course my gesture has another meaning as well. Just as the confused look comes over his face once more, he suddenly lets go of me and staggers backwards looking down.

Reflected in his eyes is the sight of a dagger through where his heart is. No matter what you are human or cyborg, your heart or power source are always in the same place. It's just a matter of how cyborg bodies work. So get your hand towards their heart and hide a knife in your sleeve.

That's all you need to take out a cyborg. They can't react to something they can't see after all. As he falls over blood bubbling up from his mouth I look down at him and smile. My smile is brighter than it's ever been. There's a tinge of madness there too now but to me I don't look mad. I look free.

I suddenly start to giggle and it resounds throughout the room. The innocent laughter of a child having fun. Perhaps some are soothed by this sound. Perhaps some find it annoying. Perhaps some find it unusual. But to this man. The laughter of an innocent child must be the last thing he expects to hear.

I stay several paces away from the man lest in his dying moments he takes revenge. Then I shout with all the gratitude I can muster. "Thank you!" and my giggle turns into a laugh. The laugh of a lady. A lady who's all grown up.

A lady who's currently collecting the processing chips. Of course I made sure to keep them far away from me when I handled them. Lest they be contaminated by the man's blood. Yet during this whole task. I continue to laugh. Laugh like a lady. Like a girl who's all grown up.

Once my task is finished I walk out humming a tune. The same tune I sung before when the man fell over. The same tune I always sing. But this time. I'm singing a tune because I'm all grown up. Once I finish piling up the chips for me to take with me in the corner I grab the knife in his chest covered in the former leader's blood and throw it into one of the junk piles around me.

Once that's done I continue to hum my little tune as I pick up the chips in the corner and run out the room. Dashing through the corridors at top speed and running into very few guards along the way I make it to the wall blocking the outside.

Once there however I see the reason for the lack of guards. They're all waiting for me at the wall. "How annoying" I mutter to myself as I stop humming and run straight towards the guards waiting at the wall.

In front of me is a team of four. One carries a laser and the other three carry knives so when they spot me the first to take aim is obviously the man with the laser. Above the team of four there is also a guard hovering above them following them not unlike a tethered balloon.

Having none of that I fire off a laser shot of my own before the man with the laser can even aim properly. It completely misses him however. Going far above his head. Thinking me just an inexperienced child he sneers and is about to fire off his own laser shot before a shout from his companion prompts him to look where I hit.

Looking up the man quickly realises the danger and rolls out of the way. Where he used to be is now a massive crater and a splatter of blood. That splatter being the man who was hovering in the air a moment ago.

While they're distracted dodging their ally I run straight at the impact point and just after it crashes I run into the smoke that came about during the explosion. I feel my feet sinking into something squishy and my mouth curls up into a small smile.

Then before any of them notice I'm gone I try to vault the wall using my hover boots. However when I try to activate them I find them uncooperative and so when I try to jump the wall the only thing that happens is I jump a few centimetres off the ground.

Having expected to be in the air by this point I stumble and face plant into the wall. Annoyed I look at my hover boots and realise the problem. Some of the squelchy stuff I stepped in was the former junklad and even in death he appears to have stopped me as what's left of him is stuck in the part of my hover boots that gives them lift.

Realising this could be a serious problem I try to remove the remains of the man from my hover boots as the still alive junklad squad look around realising they can't find me. Removing the gunk from my shoes takes all my attention so I just have to hope they don't find me as I quickly remove the viscera from my shoes and once again dash at the wall.

My hopes are betrayed however as one of the junklads spots me and shouts "Hey she's over there shoot her!" to his comrades. Being trained for exactly this scenario the man with the laser now with a cold and focused gaze, trains his laser on the position where my head is.

It's impressive he can do that but… I think to myself as I activate my hover boots and attempt to vault the wall. This time they actually work and I jump the wall. Just as I do I see a small beam of light pass through the position I once occupied.

A bead of cold sweat adorns my brow as beads of actual sweat flow profusely from all the running I'm doing currently. Once on the other side of the wall I started to sprint in zig-zag patterns and didn't look back.

A small crash next to me makes me jump but I just continue to randomly change my direction in hopes this will confuse my assailant as I run towards the wall of junk. It's only a few hundred yards but this feels like the longest sprint in my lifetime right now.

Similar crashes to the previous sound out around me and flashing lights are all I see as I continue to run. I start inhaling smoke from the sand and dust kicked up by those very flashing lights and my eyes start to tear up but even in my hazy eyesight I can see my destination looming closer and closer.

This time the light lands right in front of me and I jump nearly startled out of my skin. I don't have time to be scared however and I press on into the dust cloud this shot created. Hoping to use it as a sort of smoke screen and obscure my position.

Using that obscurity as best I can I dart to the left but still stay in the dust cloud to make sure he can't just shoot in the same spot and run as fast as my legs will carry me. The sounds of explosions and light go off near me incessantly and I just focus on where my destination is.

My vision is all but useless at this point and my nose is just filled with sand and dust particles so my hearing is the only thing I can count on to guide me in the right direction. Even that however is heavily obscured by the explosions and laserfire behind me.

Regardless I try to maintain my bearing through the dust cloud and emerge the other side closer to my destination. So when my hazy vision registers a colour other than a dark brown I almost cheer out loud before remembering that I'm not out of danger yet.

My body is getting weaker and weaker but I push through and force it to run just a little farther as I see what looks to me like a massive grey blur but is hopefully the piles of junk around the headquarters.

A few more explosions sound out around me but this one nearly hits me. Just afterwards however I dive into what I think is a gap in the big grey blur and suddenly my vision goes dark. No more dirt or dust, no more anything just pure pitch blackness. I can still hear the explosions going on but they are now muffled and seem almost further away somehow.

Regardless I celebrate because I know this means I'm inside one of the metal mounds. Using my hands as a sort of touch location I pat the space around me and head towards anywhere my hands don't come into contact with something.

I continue this train of grasping at the dark for quite some time until I finally stop hearing the sounds of explosions. Whether that means I'm far enough away I don't hear them or they've just given up on shooting at me entirely I really don't care because it means I'm free from being shot at.