“When I was in the forest,” said Caromis, “I saw something. A tombstone.”


    The Angler shifted in their seat, watching both their fishing pole and hers. Years and years of practice meant that they could easily react to a tug on the line in an instant. Keeping track of two was hardly a challenge. Keeping a conversation going, however, was far more difficult, as they’d been alone with nothing but their thoughts and their fish for so long.


    “Yes,” they said.


    “It’s overgrown. I don’t think anyone’s taken care of it for a long time.”


    The ensuing silence told Caromis it might be a sensitive topic. She pressed onward anyway.


    “Did you used to know them?”


    The Angler released what might have been a sigh, but the inhuman nature of their voice concealed not only their gender but their tone as well.


    “He was the sun.”


    She thought back to the sun-on-a-stick, the Skyball. Then there was the sun symbol inscribed into the obelisk.


    “The same one that gave you the gift of this island?”


    They sagged in their camper’s chair, the dim night-cycle of the Skyball casting the equivalent of a moon’s soft glow across their bucket hat.


    “Yes. I do not like to think about it,” they said.


    “If someone killed him, I could help. It is what I’m good at, I think.”


    Her past, while clouded and missing in places, still informed her principles and behaviors. Her subsconscious held a few pieces of who she used to be as well as her conscious memory, and both reminded her of the feeling of taking a life and the rush of getting away with it. No one needed to know those specifics, though.


    The Angler turned their head away. “I won’t talk about it.”


    “Okay. Well…” Caromis struggled to think of something to say. “There doesn’t seem to be anything in the way of non-plant life.”


    “There are worms and fish and some insects.”


    “But what about the animals? Squirrels? A couple of birds?”


    “Annoying to take care of and could disturb the fish. I prefer it without.”


    Before she could say anything further, a gentle tug on her line prodded her into reeling in her new catch. The Angler waited expectantly for her to pull her newest acquisition out of the void. Upon closer inspection, It seemed to be a shoulder mounted rocket launcher. The Angler jabbed a gloved thumb over their shoulder.


    “Toss it in the junk pile.”


    She unceremoniously chucked it into a heap of other random objects, all of them fished up. Anything that wasn''t living was considered mostly useless by the Angler. At that moment, something latched on to the Angler’s hook. Deft hands immediately began to reel in whatever it is that they caught. Eventually, they yanked what appeared to be a cyborg out of the abyss. Actually, on closer inspection, it looked more like a robot than anything shaped like a human being. Its brutally armed and expertly alloyed chassis were topped by something resembling a human head, although a metallic mask around the mouth and wired interfaces galore made it hard to tell. Whatever it was, it landed in the soil with a heavy thud, rolling over with a groan.


    “Another one?” said the Angler.


    That snapped it out of its trance. It spoke with an undeniably male voice, layered in the vibrato tinny effect of speaking from an artificial machine.


    “The hell? Who the fuck are you?!” he cried.


    He levelled his arm cannon at the Angler, who didn''t really care all that much. There was nearly no warning as the fishing line coiled around his body and snapped together, immobilizing him. Now that Caromis could take a closer look, she noted the bulky weapons and the chromed finish of the sleek outer chassis that armored him.


    The Angler tugged at the line wrapped around the robot/cyborg. “Do not attack.”


    The mechanical menace, at over eight feet tall, looked more than a little miffed at being ordered around. Combine that with the terrible burning sensation of floating through the endless dark and he looked just about ready to explode, figuratively and maybe even literally. Only his scalp to his nose still sported flesh, as the rest of him more closely resembled the outline of a modern knight; over six hundred pounds of metal, wires, hydraulics, densely packed and repacked into a humanoid shape. He was a weapon of war… and when you’re a living gun, everything starts to look like a target.


    “Why the FUCK would I listen to MEAT?”


    His statement was accompanied by the sudden screeching of the line against his body, the clear string glowing with a gentle warmth that belied its tensile strength. The incredibly thin, clear wire began to cut into his plating, the ceramic and foamed metal giving way at the slightest suggestion. The Angler, unconcerned, held one finger against the line, taking care to only apply a teensy amount of pressure. The sound and the shock forced him to reconsider his aggressive positioning, and he begrudgingly let his arm cannon sink beneath the plating again.


    “You better let me go,” he said, “or you’ll regret it.”


    Despite the blatant bluff, the Angler accepted his posturing anyway, and let the cord grow slack, sloughing off his body and swiftly retracting as it was reeled back onto the rod. They then cast the baitless hook back out into the void where it disappeared into the darkness. The cyborg briefly considered trying to blast him in the face, but he had the strange and unsettling feeling that he was still being watched. The Angler wasn’t even turned his way, just casually fishing like nothing had ever happened, but their gaze felt locked squarely on himself.


    “Just leave them alone. It’s for the best,” said Caromis.


    He turned around to see her, a stunningly average brunette stepping into her early twenties. At least that’s what he wagered, since he’d lost touch with his humanity after abandoning it for the cold certainty of steel. She wore a simple beige bucket hat, even though it was still “night-time”, and a simple gray t-shirt and brown cargo shorts she pilfered from one of the Angler’s many junk piles.


    “And who the hell are you?” he said


    She was glad that, of all things, she at least remembered her name. “I’m Caromis. You?”


    This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    But he didn’t. He wracked his brain—what presumably wasn’t already digitized—and came up with precious few memories. Unlike Caromis, he did remember a lot more of the places he’d been and the things he’d done, but with the edges sanded off, the details scrubbed away to leave only the barest, smoothened story of his life. He remembered the vague feeling of being hit by a rocket, and the resulting reconstruction of a new body. He remembered killing hundreds, thousands. He remembered glittering skyscrapers and a futuristic world, a land of neon lights and holographic billboards. He remembered the explosions, the sight of crumpled buildings, and fighting in the central plaza. Then… nothing.


    “I-- don’t remember,” he grunted, suddenly upset with himself. He should have been better than this, stronger than this. What kind of mercenary forgets their own name?


    “Nothing at all?” she asked.


    Beady red lights glinted in his used-to-be-human eyes, unblinking. “Only some letters. A, M… S. If only I could’ve replaced my brain, too. Can’t ever trust meat.”


    She got up from where she was fishing, leaving the rod behind. “Follow me,” she said.


    “I don’t recall you being my boss,” he replied.


    “Okay. Well, do you want to just stand around here instead?”


    He didn’t. He would rather be far away from that… thing. The Angler wasn’t metal or machine, steel or chrome. Definitely all flesh. But he had a smell for danger, either the kind he loved to put himself in when ripping others apart or the kind that told him to get the fuck out, and this was decidedly the latter. Grumbling, he began to stomp away, still on high alert. Caromis followed close behind, given that she had nothing better to do. The borg tramped across the grass, leaving large heavy footprints where he crossed. He cast his vision across the tranquil isle, past grassy fields and the distant thickets. He saw a pond surrounded by cattails, a glowing ball in the sky, the tiny outline of a stone obelisk, and the shitty shack the Angler called home.


    “This place sucks ass,” he muttered. “Where is this?”


    Caromis shrugged. “I don’t know. I was dragged up here only a day ago, roughly, if the day-night cycle of that Skyball thing up there can be trusted.”


    “By that fucking guy?”


    “Yeah. Didn’t know what to do, ‘cause I don’t really remember anything from before I got here, so I just walked around and then went fishing.”


    “Don’t know anything about that thing?”


    “Told me the same thing as you,” she said, “and I didn’t attack them. Other than that they just sit around and fish all day. Not much of a conversationalist either. At least I have you to talk to now, uh… whatever your name was.”


    “Didn’t know a minute ago and still don’t know now. Don’t ask.”


    “Alright, well, it had an A, an M, and an S… put that all together and you get AMS. That works as a name, right?”


    He grunted. “Sure, whatever. I don’t really care. I’m more interested in going home and ripping whoever ruined my life a new hole. Or maybe three.”


    She shook her head. “I don’t think that’s happening.”


    “Says who? A piece of meat?”


    “Says using your EYES. Look around, see any exit?”


    There wasn’t. Only the dark expanse that extended in every direction, with the occasional pinprick of light from far away breaking up the monochromacy.


    “No shuttle? No helicopters, no vehicles to fly away with? This place really is a dump,” he said.


    “Well what the fuck do you want from me? I remember floating out there and it burned horribly. You step through this… barrier or whatever, and you’re gonna feel that again. No way anyone’s surviving that. Plus there’s no gravity or anything outside, so a helicopter or something wouldn''t even work.”


    “Don’t talk like that to me, cunt. I can see you’re full meat, no metal. Watch your mouth.”


    Caromis wasn’t the kind of slaughterer AMS was, this she was sure of. Yes, she couldn’t remember the past, but her instincts told her to wait and think before a kill, rather than mindlessly murder everyone she came across. However… that expertise in death, the muscle memory of someone who’d killed more than anyone should have the right to, it simmered under her musculature, whispering to her the flow of a fight. Watch his sides, it said, keep low, hands up and ready, body boiling. Above all, she had her pride, and to be a pushover wasn’t something she was eager to slip into.


    “Says who?” she goaded.


    “Says your blown-out brains!”


    He immediately lifted his arm, cannon unfolding to give her a taste of high-velocity lead, but before his eyes her left arm sprouted like a time-lapsed tree. More than a dozen arms split from the main one, growing into their own full-sized limbs that split into more, swarming towards him akin to a giant, hungering worm. Even if AMS didn’t know what was going on, his many years of combat kicked his ass into gear. On pure reflex, he felt energy shoot through his back, through his spine, and the world around him slowed to a crawl. Bullet time-- functionally, his mind was moving a mile a minute.


    His robotic body made good use of the momentary overdrive. He easily slipped out of reach of the arms, now moving as fast as a slug, and circled around to her side where he shoved his cannon against her skull, point blank. The smugness he felt the second before pulling the trigger faltered when he noticed her eyes. Right now, in bullet time, he was moving faster than anyone else could, at speeds to outrun human cognition. No one should have been able to keep track of him, but her gaze was tracking him perfectly. It felt kind of like the Angler, though not nearly as overpowering: just disturbing.


    He leapt back as the implant in his spine shut off, sending him back to normal speed. The flood of arms flew past where he’d been a fraction of a second ago, and she continued to stare at him with a side eye. AMS exercised uncharacteristic caution as she slowly and deliberately let her fresh flesh pack itself away into her arm again, shrinking from a huge glob of skin and bone into nothing. There was no evidence she’d ever been anything other than perfectly human.


    “What the fuck are you…?” he muttered.


    “I could ask you the same question.”


    This wasn’t the kind of meat he was used to crushing in his fists. As much as he hated to admit it, he didn’t know anything about her. Clearly she was more dangerous than she let on, and he wasn’t in the business of leaping headfirst into a suicide mission, even if he was ordinarily a bloodthirsty killer. Unfortunately, that meant he had to back off and lower his weapon for the second time in ten minutes. Caromis didn’t say anything to insult him or denigrate him, electing to turn away and keep walking. This time, he followed her.


    “So where are you from, meat?” he asked.


    “Why do you keep calling me meat?”


    “You’re meat, aren’t you? Don’t see anything chrome on you.”


    She sighed, rolling her shoulders. “Used to live in the suburbs outside a big city. I think. Had a dream about that place, so I must’ve lived there.”


    “Where I’m from we don’t got suburbs anymore. That’s old shit. It’s all about the big cities now.”


    “I’m pretty sure the cities back home didn’t have any giant murderous cyborgs running around.”


    “And mine didn’t have any monsters.”


    There was an awkward silence. Caromis sat down next to the Angler’s pond, though AMS chose to remain standing.


    “You’re from Earth, right? The future, maybe?” It was her best guess, from what she’d seen of him.


    “Future? What time was it where you came from?”


    She closed her eyes and tried to recall, but the date of her disappearance eluded her. Numbers like 2000, 2010, and 2020 floated to the top of her mind where she scummed them off the surface. Yes, she vaguely felt connected to those years, as if she lived them, but the exact time was out of her reach.


    “Like… 2020-something?”


    “Fuck, all the way back then? I mean, I was already borged back then, pretty sure. Didn’t have as good a body as now.”


    She rubbed her chin. “There’s no way we could be from the same place, then. Where I’m from, all this tech, this cyberware or what you call it, isn’t available. Not like this.”


    “What do you have, then?”


    “Replacement limbs and medical implants. That sort of thing.”


    “We had those back in the 2020s, for sure,” said AMS.


    “Different worlds, then. We both speak English so the divergence probably isn’t too big. I guess yours is more futuristic than mine.”


    “Then what world is this?”


    He gestured with a chromed hand to the bubble around them, keeping the isle safe and floating through the sunless sea. She picked up a pebble, tossing it into the pond where it made ripples. The shadowy blob of a fish in the water darted away into the reeds.


    “Guess we have to find out,” she said. “I think we’re gonna be stuck here awhile.”


    “Stuck here with the fisher.”


    “The Angler,” she corrected.


    “I don’t know what it is. It doesn''t sound like a man or a woman. Doesn’t even sound human. All I know is it’s meat.”


    “Yeah. I wouldn’t fight them. I get the feeling I’d die before I could even try.”


    AMS crossed his arms. “What if they change their mind and kill us, eventually? What then?”


    “Hell if I know. I guess we’d have to fight them together.”


    “I’m not a babysitter. Not a fan of deadweight.”


    “You sure?” she said. She let an arm bloom into a few more limbs for emphasis.


    “Fine. We work together for now. But I call my own shots, you call yours. Got it?”


    She smiled. Hook, line, and sinker. For all the killing she’d missed out on, she didn’t lack charisma. If her subconscious was anything to go by, the art of acting felt second nature to her. It was a little frustrating to know these tidbits about herself, like her neutrality to killing and the unconscious skill of socializing that she apparently had, but an asset was an asset and she wasn’t gonna NOT use it. She reached out one hand to him.


    “Of course. We shake on it.”


    He stared at her hand, then her eyes. After a few seconds of uncertain eye contact, she wiggled her arm encouragingly.


    “I’m not gonna do the hands thing this time,” she said.


    He snorted, the first sign of anything resembling amusement she’d seen out of him, and then took her hand in his, shaking it with a powerful grip. He was surprised to feel not the noodly weakness of a woman who clearly didn’t exercise, but the iron strength to match any cyborg.


    “So this is why you ain’t got any implants, huh? Don’t need a new body if yours is like this.” He couldn’t smirk due to his metallic mouthpiece, but she could hear it in his tone.


    “Also because I couldn’t buy one if I wanted to, but yes. Pleasure doing business with you.”


    “Starting to sound like a suit already,” he said.


    The Angler was not aware of this as it transpired, though they weren’t the kind of person to find a betrayal or mutiny extraordinary. They’d played the great game of life to its conclusion. There was no need for them to fear a knife in their back or a gun to their head, anymore. So as the two strangers formed an uneasy alliance, the Angler continued to do what they always did.


    To fish.