FITTS

The light cutter made a hollow sound as he squeezed the handle. Empty. Anatole knew it was heavily used when he found it, but he’d hoped for more than three shots. Three shots, two misses. The one that hadn’t sailed over the FITTs head had pissed it off. The hulking aberation stopped in its tracks, shaking off the blast to the face.

Protecting himself was hard enough. Factor in a noncombatant and things got hairy. He had to be more careful.

 “Everything OK?”

Anatole dropped the cutter to the ground, its rock cutting days finally over. His old construction rig shuddered from the sudden loss of weight. “Totally fine.” he said.

Ciro’s chuckle in his ear tickled the back of his neck. He was already knee deep in shit; he didn’t need to lose focus on top of it. The FITT had recovered, and was bearing down on him, a cloud of dust trailing behind it. “You sure? Sounded like you missed a couple shots.”

“Got it all under control, babe.” Was babe too much? They’d met the day before on the road, but they’d been together in Anatole’s head a dozen times since. That had to count for something. If he failed here, none of that would matter. “If there’s a bunker hidden under your shack, retreating wouldn’t be the worst idea.”

Ciro didn’t show any sign of being annoyed by the nickname. They laughed again. “I’ll leave you to it. Remember, we make it out of this, we’ll go into town and get that drink.”

As if Anatole needed more motivation to fight.

He tested the mech’s pincers, made for hauling rock and construction. Not combat, but they’d kept him alive this long. The ground trembled beneath him as the FITT came closer. “Alright, let’s make it count.”