O'Toole regarded Bane with her keen green eyes.  She took his hand into her meatier one and shook it.  "I seen people like you every night, on my way from the labor pits to the barracks.  All sorts of people - furs, halfbreeds, and hybrids, all of 'em laid out in dumpsters or sleepin' under bridges.  Never thought any of them would amount to anything."  She let go of his hand.  "Thanks for proving me wrong."  She looked at the buildings passing by the truck, her red hair blowing a bit in the wind.  "None of us were killers before this," she said.  "We all knew this night would come.  We knew we'd have to kill some furs to free ourselves.  We spent years training in secret for it."  She went to scratch her face and noticed the blood on it, stopping herself.  "I was a slave in an iron refinery 'fore tonight.  I hauled slag for almost my whole life.  I been raped.  I been whipped.  I been bit.  Almost got vored once.  My back is all callused and burned.  Now I'm killin' furs.  I'm dishin' out what I took.  I hate it.  But it's what's got to be done."  She looked at Bane.  "You go on and try to nap, I guess," she said.  "We'll hit that safe house soon."<br/><br/>Sergeant Halvorson listened to Baz intently.  He had never heard of the Slayers before.  Then again, he had not met anyone from the Highlands in his life, though he knew of them and had heard all the popular stories.  "I won't pry," he said as the rat's eyes unfocused.  "But you ain't gonna die for us.  Not for a long time yet.  You've got too big of a gun to die." He smiled and took the flask, swigging it back and gulping.  It wasn't so bad this time around, but he could hear his throat screaming at him to stop.  He shook away the burning and coughed a few times, then passed the flask to the blond lieutenant.<br/><br/>Just then, the silver serpent touched down on the truck.  Halvorson listened to his words.  "The neutral leader?  I wonder who he means..." he said.  "He wants some fun out of this?  The hell does that mean?  And revenge?  On who?"  He stood up and looked at the fox following them along the rooftops.  "If he thinks any of us is gonna trust him when he says stuff like that, he's just gonna have to stay up there."  He detailed a man to keep an eye on the fox, arming him with the harpoon-gun.<br/><br/>Then he noticed the serpent looking over the scarred form laid to a side.  He walked over and stood beside him.  "That's your sister?  What happened to her?"  The medic, who had just finished taking care of the last of the humans, came over and bent down, looking at the scars torn into the form's flesh and scales.<br/><br/>"Something big and powerful did this to her," he said.  "Sorry, I don't know much about fixing up furs, and know nothing about patching up scalies."  He looked at the serpent.  "I can give her some painkillers, but I don't know if they'd work.  Aside from that, I've got some basic antibiotics, but nothing that would cure her.  And I don't even know if they'd work on her body."<br/><br/>Collins muttered something more about his hunger and sat down.