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The towering figure of the Skinner chief swayed as he walked toward them, looming like a mountain slowly closing in.
Cold sweat streamed down Shen Lu's forehead, his face growing paler as he shot a nervous glance at Maverick. He knew that if their positions were reversed, the logical move would be to hand Maverick over in exchange for his own survival—because showing mercy to the enemy often meant cruelty to oneself.
Yet Maverick didn't even glance at the chief. Instead, his gaze was locked onto the figure trailing behind him. The tall, thin Skinner—the one they had witnessed die on the battlefield.
Dr. Chan's face turned ashen, as if he had seen a ghost. Maverick's eyes widened too, scanning the man's features, searching for any sign that he was simply a twin. But the black burn scar across his chest hadn't faded. It was him—the one who had come back from the dead. The tall, thin Skinner seemed just as uneasy, turning his head away to avoid their stares.
Thump. Thump.
The chief's heavy footsteps came to a halt before Maverick and Dr. Chan. He said nothing, merely examining the newcomers with a cold stare.
The air thickened, pressing down on them like an invisible weight.
Instinctively, the young men stood. Surprisingly, Shen Lu's expression began to settle into calm. He opened his mouth to speak.
"Chief… I—"
But Maverick cut him off."Chief, thank you for saving us!"
His gratitude was not met with kindness. The chief's voice was cold."I don't keep useless people around. Tell me—what skills do you have? If you want to stay here, you better prove your worth."
Maverick was about to answer, but the chief raised a hand to silence him."Not you. I already know—you're the one who builds power drills. Impressive."
Maverick couldn't tell if it was praise or mockery. The chill in the chief's tone suggested the latter. But it didn't bother him. His father had always told him, Gold shines no matter where it's placed.
The chief seemed irritated by Maverick's unbothered expression. He scoffed, his voice sharp."If I'm not satisfied tomorrow, you won't like what happens next." Then, turning to Dr. Chan, he demanded,"And what about you?"
Dr. Chan flinched, stumbling over his words."I… I…"
His mind was racing. I'm a researcher! What am I supposed to do in a place that looks straight out of the Stone Age?
The chief's expression was unreadable."Either prove you're useful, or…"
He gestured, and the familiar tall, thin Skinner stepped forward.
The burn marks on his shoulder were still there, the charred scent of flesh clinging to the air. It smelled almost like roasted meat—but instead of making them hungry, it turned their stomachs.
Dr. Chan finally broke, blurting out the question that had been clawing at his mind."Are you… are you a man or a ghost?"
The Skinner Fred chuckled awkwardly."What's so strange about it? If I don't play dead, how else can I escape their hunt?"
Maverick raised a thumb in mock admiration, but the gesture made the man's face darken. He turned to the chief, his voice laced with irritation."Boss, you planning to turn them into dinner tonight or what?"
Dr. Chan's spine stiffened, his face draining of color—matching Shen Lu's ghostly pallor.
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Maverick, ever the opportunist, blurted,"Wait! He's a scientist. A proper one. If you want to block the signals from those mechanical snakes, he's your man!"
That caught the chieftain's attention. His eyes lit up—possibly from interest, possibly from imagining those snakes exploding. Mechanical snakes were, after all, the local nightmare: fast, smart, and vicious enough to ruin any decent picnic. The camp had moved more times than a cat avoiding bathwater.
"You can handle the snakes?" the chief asked, intrigued."Sounds impressive. So what's your plan, Einstein?"
Spurred by Maverick's desperate improvisation, Dr Chan's brain finally kicked into gear."We can build a jammer! Disrupt their signal—blind them."
The tall Skinner Fred snorted with the kind of disdain usually reserved for mime artists and tax auditors."A'jammer'? Does it shoot bullets? Bombs? No? Then what good is it against a snake made of metal?"
He threw his arms in the air, theatrically exasperated."Only thing that stops a metal snake is a metal stick! A big one! Thick as your thigh and twice as angry!"
The surrounding Skinners burst into laughter. One waved his iron bar like a baton."Yeah! Metal stick's the best tech we've got!"
Then, from the back, an older Skinner muttered,"Last time I used one, I barely scratched the shell before it turned me into a pretzel."
"That's'cos you're weak!" the tall one snapped."Nothing wrong with the stick—just the arm swinging it!"
"Last month, we set traps—didn't help," the old man grumbled."Snake ripped it all up like tissue paper. Nearly had us for lunch."
"Then make better traps!" Fred bellowed."Bigger spikes! Bigger rocks! It's not hard!"
"We've tried all that!" the elder snapped, trudging off in disgust."Every time we settle, the snakes come knocking. We're living like rats!"
Fred sneered at the old man's retreating back, completely ignoring the fact that he himself had the muscle tone of a damp sock.
Meanwhile, the chief loomed over Dr Chan, voice low and dangerous.
"Then you'd better prove yourself. Tomorrow evening. I want results—or you'll both be dinner."
Maverick exhaled—finally. A day's reprieve. He immediately requested permission to go scavenging for parts.
The chieft waved him off like a man dismissing a pigeon."Take him to the junkyard," he said to Fred, who looked as thrilled as a man assigned to babysit a cactus.
As they turned to leave, the chief's eyes landed on Shen Lu .
"Well?" he said."What do you do?"
Shen Lu shifted awkwardly."I... I can draw... play piano... write novels..."
His voice got smaller with every word. This was not the sort of place where watercolours and iambic pentameter were especially useful.
"Novelist?" The chief blinked.
A silence fell.
"Boss, shall I roast him now? Meat's nearly off," Fred suggested helpfully.
"Shut it!"
To everyone's surprise, the chief turned and walked away, muttering, "A novelist… sigh. Useless for survival. Let him keep dreaming of long lines of fans waiting for his autograph…"
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The next morning, they left the camp quietly and travelled for half a day until they reached the nearest dump—a towering mountain of refuse that looked more like a post-apocalyptic theme park than a landfill.
Maverick stood at the edge, surveying the twisted metal landscape: a mess of broken plastic, fractured limbs from abandoned machinery, rust-streaked panels. It was like a scrapyard had exploded, and then been rearranged by a blind abstract artist.
He knelt, hands moving fast. Time was tight. The mechanical snakes were known to patrol this area, and if they were going to build a device to save their skins, they needed to do it fast.
Soon, he unearthed a battered power board, pried it open, and salvaged an oscillation circuit and a capacitor still clinging to life. Nearby, he spotted a coiled high-frequency wire. In no time, he stripped and rewired the components, cobbling them into a makeshift device.
"Check this modulator board—does it still work?" he asked without looking up.
Dr Chan wiped sweat from his face. He was trembling inside, but his hands were precise."Yes—but unstable. Range maxes out at fifty metres."
"Good enough." Maverick grinned, eyes alight. Dr Chan checked some calculations. Before long, a primitive signal jammer was ready.
Dr Chan cradled the device."We need to go—now."
But Maverick was still tinkering, fitting the coil into a segment of mechanical snake carcass. His grin widened.
"Add a trigger, and boom—we've got ourselves a makeshift snake-gun. Tables are turning."
Before he could finish the thought, Fred came sprinting toward them, pale and breathless.
"Quick! We've got incoming—three snakes heading this way!"