02/12/2025 Snippet, PICKMAN’S MODELS.

Back to this, yes.

The cleaver-man looked fuller when he and Reithner returned, an hour later. His face was distinctly ruddier, and his blue eyes glittered in a way that Tobias found bizarrely reassuring. You didn’t want to get too dead inside, because these days that was a great way to get dead outside, too. Reithner looked somehow off, and it took Tobias a moment to realize why. She was still wearing her helmet, but the faceplate was now retracted. 

His captor clearly saw the anger flickering across Tobias’s face. “She took it off of her own desire, American,” he sneered. “You can stay sealed up, if you’re so afraid of a little fresh air.”

“Fresh air? This entire complex has been thoroughly contaminated with Red Imperial materials,” Tobias snapped. “Of course I’m afraid of it.”

“Your loss,” the cleaver-man told him, with what sounded like real cheerfulness. “Takes all kinds to make some worlds, doesn’t it? You don’t want to taste some different thinking in the breeze, that’s on you. The Lieutenant here is not so fussy.”

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