Liv ran. Her hands were curled loosely at chest height; her feet, encased in tennis shoes left over from another life, pounded the ground. [i]All the long way down. I'll head into town. Blood falls all around. [/i] She did not reach forward with each step, but pushed off of the sand beneath her—perfect running form, or it would be if her face was not tilted up towards the predawn sky. Liv increased her speed, each step push push pushing the ground farther away, while in her mind, her arms lengthened and her chest deepened. Liv's face pulled forward, her eyes elongated and her nose and mouth tightened into a sharp gold point. Goosebumps spread across her skin with the eruption of a thousand feathers. And then, with a final push and a curl of her taloned toes, she was airborne, wheeling high, free free free of the real world...

Until the wall rose above her, rudely erupting into her clear view, as unwelcome as any volcano. Liv’s small, human feet skidded to a stop, spraying sand in an arc before her. The rushing of wind through feathers again became the crash of waves on the sand. The sun was up, Liv's daily loop of the Refuge completed. Time to go back home. [i]Trapped in an iron dome. All alone. Alone. Alone. [/i]

In the tiny one-room living space built into the back of her garage, the mechanic peeled out of the tank and shorts she had been running in and dropped them carelessly in the middle of the otherwise tidy floor before removing her metal arm and padding to the shower. Liv stood in the hot water listlessly, letting it pound into her skin, watching the water run down the drain. With just a little bit of effort and a quiet lullaby, the swirling water stayed clean and clear; otherwise, it might thicken and deepen into rusty blood, life flowing away away away… One armed, Liv bathed with just a small part of the pre-disaster bar of soap that had cost her two of her handmade rifle scopes. It had a pleasant, flowering smell that helped keep her mind in nice places. [i]Gentle faces. CD cases. Filled flower vases. [/i]

Afterward, in the mirror, she examined herself without really seeing— naked, her hair lank and dripping. She poked around the empty shoulder socket with one finger only to find the skin pale and irritated around the metal socket. Liv poked harder, but it wasn’t hot to the touch or overly painful yet, so she went ahead and fitted her metal appendage into its place. The mechanic would have to do something for that shoulder, but it would be fine a bit longer; the salve she needed had only run out the previous week. [i]Patch up the leak. Don’t you be meek. Listen to them shriek.[/i]

Clean, dressed, and mostly dry, Liv proceeded to get dirty. The list of important things that broke in the Refuge seemed endless, but the young woman certainly didn’t mind the work. Liv picked up the malfunctioning cybernetic foot at the top of her pile, and listened to the Refuge come awake.

[hr]

Liv was still tinkering away—this time on a set of handheld communicators of her own design— when a friendly enforcer came by to pick up the weapon upgrades he had requested. The talkative young man had plenty of gossip to share on a new beyond-the-wall operation including large numbers of civilians and, even more interestingly, they needed mechanics.

Liv turned to take in the looming wall, just visible between the buildings in that direction. The massive barricade filled her with apprehension, but even more so Liv felt the burning need to go beyond it once more. It had been months since Liv had been brought half-sane into the Refuge and she wanted—no [i]needed[/i]— to see the place where she had lost her family. A small part of her still hoped she might find her father behind that dark wall. [i]Here comes the fall. We must heed the call. This is the end of it all.[/i]

Suddenly, Liv stood up, sending a wrench or two clattering to the floor. She shoved her toolkit, including the attachments for her metal arm, into an army green backpack along with a clean shirt, a coil of rope, and a few boxes of made bullets for her two pistols. If nothing else, the pay for this op would allow her to acquire some real honest-to-God deodorant, not the handmade shit most commonly found in the Refuge. With a glare, Liv shoved a container of the offending antiperspirant into her bag as well. 

[hr]

Head held high by the force of her will power, Liv approached one of the officers loading trucks and shoved the papers identifying her as a mechanic under his nose. She’d chosen this particular man for his busy, harried demeanor and, just as she’d hoped, he barely gave the papers a glance before letting out a sigh of relief.

“You’ve got no idea how badly we needed a real mechanic,” he said, flashing a smile at Liv, “You’ll be in the truck over there with the other civilians.”

Liv smiled back, relieved as well. He hadn’t bothered to check her psych-eval, which was highly questionable at best. Humming to herself, Liv strode over to the truck in question, trying to look as if she was meant to be here. [i]Nice cold beer. Ghouls come to leer. Death draws near. [/i]