Hellsborough Exposed

For months I was shadowed by the seven, the same faces running the same routes, forever "bumping into" me, until the day I stopped crossing The Hinge and settled here for good. Then, all at once, they let me go; the organic network had decided I was no longer worth the resource, that my psycmask would surveil me quite well enough on its own. I should feel relieved, and I do, but I will admit that being watched by seven strangers was a kind of company, and the silence since is its own quiet ache.

Lost in a murk so heavy I could not see two feet, I blundered into a farmer's field and a snarl of barbed wire, and was collected by the owner himself, one of those increasingly rare humans who still work the Dark Peak. He kept me talking in an accent broader than Van's, then sat me in his sparse kitchen and fed me warm fresh demonspawn milk and salted wooltard shank, both of them, I have to report, delicious. He sells the rest of his produce to The Nascenti, who process it into biofeed for the pop; I never got his name, but I have a feeling our paths will cross again.