Days are long and strange when you walk with the city folk. It's like they're made of broken hearts and shattered dreams. Heads down, faces pale, children dead quiet. They're afraid. Truth to tell, they have everything in the world to fear. Why? It's like the old ones say, because as of a few centuries ago, it wasn't their world anymore.
Time slowed to an unfamiliar pace after the pains of the world crashed down. Hunger, thirst, cold, darkness, ignorance; sensations they thought were so far away in the decadence of Before. But now, huddled in burnt-out skyscrapers with the world crumbling around them, they have to remember. Have to survive. The Madness doesn't relent.
Me, I'm a Claw. Claws are not afraid. What a Claw does is fight the fights that are forgotten by everyone else. Win, lose, it doesn't matter. There's always another Claw to fill your place.
We live on the frontier. We watch. We wait. We're here on a mission the first Claw started, but couldn't complete in his time. City folk have mostly forgotten about us, but they don't need to know. It's probably better that they don't. This way they don't have to wrap their heads around the heartache and the butchery.
******
“We have blood all over our hands,” said James, staring at his palms like they were traitors.
The man opposite was sprawled on a bench like a drunkard, smoking. “We did what we were paid to do. No one can blame us for that.”
James grumbled. “They can blame us for choosing a career path in biomilitary... I still don't like it. The people should know, shouldn't they? What we did? Why it's all happening?”
The other shook his head. "They can't. They would never understand. We'd be the guys that invented the atom bomb. Except this atom bomb goes off in everyone's body."
James sighed.
The other man just shrugged. “The cover up will keep us safe. And there's no guarantee it will spread that much. They're quarantining. Just hope it doesn't get out that it was engineered, you should know full well how the media eats this kind of shit up.”
James nodded grimly. “Yeah... I guess. If all's well... In a few weeks, maybe months, they'll be back to reporting who had sex with who. Although, why that stuff is big news still escapes me!”
“Ha. That's not big news, James. Not unless you're involved.”
******
Clan Claw home is all over the border between the city and Hell. Hell is everywhere else. It's where every Claw is beaten until he's tough. It's where every Claw is weened on poison, moonshine and the milk of his mother's tits. And it's where every Claw fights the Madness. It's what we're born to do.
The Madness is always ready. Won't wait for you to catch your breath, won't wait for you to finish pissing, won't wait for you to wake up. You have to be prepared to fight it all the time, or know someone you trust to fight it for you.
If the Madness gets you, you're better off dead. You change. You're not human anymore, not where it counts.
Fighting the Madness is number one for a Claw. Self preservation is next on the agenda. And the only other thing a Claw needs to worry about is starting his own brood. Best if a Claw has more than ten kids. And he should hope to have at least five left after training's done. Doesn't matter what kind of parts they have... Claws are always men, even the women.
******
James waded through an ocean of questions and microphones.
"Tell us how the plague is spread!"
“No comment,” said James under his breath.
“Can you explain the symptoms of the plague, sir?”
"Why are all these people... going mad?"
“No comment!”
He ducked into the limousine and heaved a sigh.
His good friend had already filled the cabin with smoke. “Well at least they don't know the full story. Right now everything's under control.”
James rubbed his temples. “I don't know how this can get much worse.”
His friend just shrugged. “The company will go down, that's for sure. But chances are the money will go all over in payouts before they even think about correcting this mess. Get in fast and set yourself up for the rest of your life. That's what I'm doing.”
James shook his head sadly, going over the work they had done in his mind for what seemed like the millionth time. Then, teary, he regarded the indifferent smoker anew. “It was supposed to help people. A revolution in evolution. That was the slogan wasn't it? This isn't what we wanted. It isn't what anyone wanted... Where did we go wrong?”
The man opposite him glanced to the floor of the car darkly. He exhaled long and hard, his smoky breath rising in wafts and tendrils. There was a long silence before he spoke, and when he did his voice was a cracked and woeful whisper.
“I don't know.”
******
When sentry smoke rises, you know they've arrived. That's if you don't hear the phantom howls or the screaming first. Sometimes they attack hard in one place, other times they attack hard from all directions. All the time, we're there to say hello. And Claw greeting cards usually involve a lot of hot shrapnel.
******
James thrust a newspaper in his friend's face. “Quarantine failed. Big time.”
The other man, who had been holding a cup of coffee, just stared at the paper... And coffee spilled all over the good table.
******
When the fight finally comes, they come running at full pelt, faster than any sane man. The Madness shrugs off every limitation.
Look around the battlefield and you see bleak, vacuous eyes full of lust and violence. Relentless butchery. Endless energy. And that's just what Claws are made of.
That says nothing of the Madness, the Madness is much worse. Live on the frontier and you'll see sights beyond reckoning. Things no one should see.
Lots of Claws perish in battle. But we keep breeding. Always more to rise back up. It's all a part of the great circle of stabbity death.
******
James could see his friend. He was talking on the phone, and it looked important. But James couldn't hear a word. He just kept working.
His friend stole subtle glances at James, whispering into the handset. “... I'm worried about him. Lately he has been talking about leaving, and the plague's only getting worse out there. Yes... Yes, I know. He has been attending all kinds of crap: military training, martial arts classes, gym sessions. Yeah. He used to be such a weedy nerd, now he's gone nuts. It's the guilt...”
A few moments later, he finished his conversation and sauntered lazily over to James.
James glanced up, cigar poking out one side of his teeth. His face was touched with intensity. “Ahh, good! I'm glad you're here, I have something to show you.”
His friend looked quizzically at the object on James' work bench. “What is it?”
James grinned dementedly. “I call it the Claw. It's one of the most advanced robotic exoskeletons ever built for the purposes of wanton destruction. That we know of, anyway.”
It was a large arm. Maybe not the most sophisticated or classy looking thing. But definitely dangerous. It was like a mountain of blades, reminiscent of a cross between a limb, a drill bit, and the god of all blenders.
His friend squinted. “Going back to a career in mechatronics I see. What's it for?”
James began strapping the Claw on, flipping various switches and tickling the tops of buttons along its length. “Well... Remember how they sidelined me after I couldn't produce the vaccine they wanted? How they wouldn't agree to killing them while there was still time?”
His friend nodded solemnly, eyes lingering on the Claw as it began to writhe in destructive patterns. A wind blew up in the laboratory, sending papers flying.
“I used my company payout... This-” James said over the steadily increasing mechanical noise, hefting the Claw up and biting hard on his smoking cigar, “-is my vaccine.”
******
Claw fables are spoken down through the ages. The old ones say we're here on a mission the first Claw started, but couldn't complete in his time. That, and generations of inbreeding, are the reasons we're here. The first Claw trained his sons in the ways of war and manliness. Then they trained their sons, and every generation since has learned from and built on the previous one.
Killing off the Madness isn't just our mission and our birthright, it's the only way left to live that's worth living. And I tell you, killing these Things when you're a bit drunk is a lot like that place the older Claws talk about. Paradise. Heaven. It's the closest Clan Claw will ever get.
After we do battle against the Madness, we scream the first Claw's sacred name to make them afraid. There's a prophecy that says one day they'll come at us in an enormous final battle, and all of Clan Claw will stand on the horizon and scream the name. They'll see us silhouetted on a bloody sky; watching, waiting, and that day will be different. That day they won't change nobody, they'll just flee like frightened dogs.
It's said we'll kill them all that day, when the Madness finally turns to Fear. And our mission, the first Claw's mission, will finally be complete.
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