Picksy Flint
Picksy Flint was born after the fall. When the grid, and luxury, and the masses were little more than mystical retellings from the oldest still walking. The days had shriveled. The nights bled on. And she had the marks to prove it. Her crystalline gray eyes at the heart of them.
She killed her first feeder at the age of six. Granted the spiked arm that recoiled when she released the trigger did most of the work, but the kill was hers, and she liked it. From that moment, her path was chosen.
Depopulation. That’s the term Picksy fancied. She started with the small villa of Carbon Run, population 284. She knew her family called it ‘hometown’, but she didn’t grasp why, since they had been living in the hills her whole life. Still, the Run was a good place to start, and over two weeks in the rainy season of her fourteenth year, Picksy brought down 206 feeders. Four of them had been relatives.
Killing them wasn’t hard, ragged and decrepit as they were. Staying clear was. She was very particular about the numbers, and she always kept them manageable. Quick, careful and aware. That was the mantra. The only other number that mattered to her was the Count. She kept very careful record of her efforts, and so far she had taken care of 311 feeders.
The elders spoke of numbers that she could not even comprehend. Vast piles of digits that exceeded the basic math skills she fostered. The target number didn’t matter so much though. Adding to the Count did. She had her sights on Pickensville next, mostly because of the name, population 3155. Her eyes sparkled at the thought of one of the big cities on the horizon. She couldn’t wait. She would spend every day thinning their numbers, every day gaining ground. Their time was past, and she wanted to see the land as she had walked it in her dreams.
Depopulated.