The man took two strides forward and was upon Cole, pulling him up by his neck. The power of the grip reminded him of being choked by the Stanley—but this time he was alone, with no Walter to take control and save him. The empty and endless horizon on all sides of him hammered that fact home.

“Tell me you recognize me,” the man said. He shook Cole violently before pulling his face close. Cole glanced at the sword, which was being held out to the side, poised as if to split him in half across his waist. “How can you not recognize me in this rain?”

Cole looked up and studied the man’s face. Part of him sagged with the pathetic futility of his struggles. Other parts—the non-mechanical parts—tensed with the will to live. He glared at the man from behind his goggles. He focused on his face for the first time as rivulets of water wiggled across his shielded vision.

It was the mad sneer that did it. The mad sneer and the fact that the man wasn’t winded at all. Didn’t even seem to be breathing.

“No,” Cole said, shaking his head.

“Isn’t it delicious?” the man asked. He licked some of the rain off his lips and smiled.

It was the scout, the small man from the Naval office, one of the men they had fought during the floods on—

“Palan,” Cole said.

“That’s right.” The man released Cole and stepped backward. He twirled his sword through the air and looked up and down Cole’s body, as if determining where to end him. “I was demoted because of you,” he said. “High command gave me a few fleshy assignments before sending me to this contaminated outpost.” His arm flashed and Cole felt a sting on his right hand. His body shivered with another delayed flinch. He looked to his hand as he heard something plop into the water.

His index finger was gone. A drop of rain hit the open wound and sparked something electrical within—a jolt he could feel across his artificial flesh. Before he could react, or even scream, another swipe sent his middle finger up in the air, tumbling through the rain with a few drops of crimson, spiraling down to the muddy wet below.

“My career was taken from me, one little piece at a time, for the fail-ures you caused.”

Cole stumbled back, out of the reach of the blade, but the man moved even faster, matching every step with one of his own.

“Now you’ll give it back as I take you apart, one little piece at a time.”

A blur and his ring finger was snicked off with robotic precision.

“Stop it!” Cole yelled. He fought the urge to cover the metal parts of himself with flesh and bone, but he knew that would be even worse. He held his reduced hand in front of himself and kept backing away, his mind racing with some scheme to go out heroically.