The seatbelt is holding was the inane thought that kept flashing in Niva’s mind as the van went end over end. She could hear the agonizing shriek of metal begin compressed but as soon as the vehicle rested, her instincts coldly kicked in and she was out of the seat belt and crawling out the back of the van. She struggled through the bushes growing alongside the curb outside of McDonalds. She cursed some obscure landscaper as she rolled free just a heartbeat before the ground began to shake.<br/><br/>“Fuck,” she exploded when she saw the behemoth intent on the van she had just vacated. Impatiently she wiped blood from her eye as she watched the mech rip of the side of the van and Gabriel manage to escape. The monstrous machine focused on him with the intent to kill him when suddenly the other rider attacked the thing with a brick.<br/><br/>“I’ve seen it all,” Niva said as she crouched in the shadow of the bush. “You rock.”<br/><br/>Niva didn't admire a lot of people and usually people lived up to the ideal she had of the general population. This new person, had she referred to them as a specie? well this new entity was pretty gutsy and innovative. Niva decided she would be honored to work with someone like that. The people looking on were screaming and cursing. Some of the idiots were standing on the street taking pictures with their phones.<br/><br/>"Probably putting this on You Tube," she though with irritation.<br/><br/>Niva looked around for something to use to neutralize the mech and finally settled on a garbage truck. The driver and his helpers had fled at the insistence of the police, leaving the doors open and the motor running. Niva ran for it and slammed the door. Grinding gears, she barreled toward the heels of the mech. If Achilles could be taken out by the heels, and cutting a man’s hamstrings could prevent him from walking, maybe, just maybe, she could at least impede this things forward motion.<br/><br/>Niva managed to get the massive blue truck up to about 45 miles an hour, only running over one vacated motorcycle in the process and rammed the mech in the back of the “ankle”.  It stopped and turned to her, only to be distracted by the other rider. She backed up and rammed it again. This time, he did reach for the truck, but Niva had bailed and was running away from him at a right angle. Had it stopped it? She didn’t wait to find out. Her mission now was to find Gabriel