Never do deals with Arthur the Junk Man | Flyah Stories

 The smell of oxidized iron and stagnant oil hung heavy over the Westside scrap heaps. Rellz Tha Postman didn't breathe, but his internal sensors flagged the air quality as "Hazardous." He stood motionless, his hydraulic joints emitting a faint, rhythmic hum that mirrored the ticking of a clock.

Across from him sat Arthur, perched on a throne of crushed alternators. Arthur’s eyes were too wide, too bright—the unmistakable glaze of a man who found joy in the sound of snapping bone. Behind him, the neon lights of Storm Valley flickered like a dying heartbeat.

"You’re late, Postman," Arthur rasped, sharpening a rusted machete against his own prosthetic thumb. "I don’t like waiting. It makes my skin itch."

"The logistics of moving through Pachino territory are complex," Rellz replied. His voice was a smooth, synthesized baritone. He reached into a pressurized compartment in his forearm and pulled out a sleek, encrypted data slate. "The documents you requested. Ledgers, wiretap transcripts, and the offshore coordinates for Tony and Frankie Pachino’s primary laundering hubs."

Arthur’s grin was jagged. The Pachino brothers had held a stranglehold on the Valley’s black market for decades. With this intel, Arthur’s syndicate wouldn't just compete; they would inherit the throne.

"Hand it over," Arthur whispered.

"The payment first," Rellz countered. "Fifty thousand in untraceable credits and the bypass codes for the Westside grid."

Arthur stood up, his movements jerky and unpredictable. He walked toward a massive, yellowed silhouette looming in the shadows behind him—a modified, armor-plated D11 bulldozer. "You know, Postman, I’ve been thinking. Why pay for the keys to the city when I can just bury the guy who brought them?"

Before Rellz’s processors could calculate the shift in aggression, Arthur leapt into the cab of the machine. The engine roared to life with a guttural, mechanical scream, spewing thick black smoke that blotted out the moon.

"I’ve always wanted to see if a cyborg bleeds hydraulic fluid!" Arthur shrieked over the engine's whine.

The bulldozer lunged forward. Rellz calculated the trajectory instantly. He dove to the left, his metal chassis clattering against a pile of discarded radiators. The massive steel blade of the dozer slammed into the ground where he had been standing, shearing through solid concrete.

Arthur pulled a hard 180, the tracks of the machine grinding cars into pancakes. Rellz scrambled up a mountain of tires, his optical sensors flickering red. He wasn't built for a brawl with heavy machinery, but his internal servos were primed for evasion.

The bulldozer roared up the incline, the massive blade rising like a guillotine. Arthur’s face was pressed against the glass, twisted in a mask of manic glee. Just as the steel teeth were about to crush Rellz’s torso, the Postman engaged his emergency thrusters.

A burst of blue flame erupted from his heels. Rellz launched himself into the air, clearing the cab by inches. As he soared over, he dropped a small, magnetic pulse-charge onto the bulldozer’s engine block.

He landed in a roll thirty feet away. A muffled thump echoed behind him, followed by the hiss of a dying engine. The bulldozer sputtered and went cold.

"Deal’s off, Arthur," Rellz called out, his internal cooling fans whirring back to a normal tempo. "I'll take these to the Pachinos. They pay better for loyalty than you do for betrayal."

By the time Arthur kicked the door open, screaming obscenities into the smog, the Postman was already a silver blur disappearing into the neon fog of Storm Valley.