DEV1AT3 (Deviate)

2.1 Splitsville

“Are these people defective?”

Lemon Fresh winced as another explosion burst against their hull. The world shook and her brainmeats ached and she was beginning to wonder if getting up this morning had been such a fizzy idea. The heavy armor they were encased in held fast, but the boom was still deafening, echoing around her skull. She could barely hear Ezekiel’s shout from the driver’s seat below.

“Their rockets seem to be working just fine!”

Lemon pulled her helmet down harder, yelling over the ’splodies. “Dimples, when you convinced me to jack this thing, it was on the understanding that nobody’d be stupid enough to pick a fight with a tank!”

“I didn’t think anyone was!”

Another explosion burst against their roof, and Lemon held on to her gunner’s seat for dear life. “Okay, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but—”

“Look, if you’re that worried, you could always shoot them back!”

“I’m fifteen years old! I dunno how to shoot with a t—”

Another explosion cut Lemon’s sentence off, but from the swearing she heard down in the driver’s cabin, she was pretty sure Zeke got the gist. She looked into the vidscreens at her gunner’s controls, heart sinking as she noticed their hull was now on fire, that another rocket team had joined the first in trying to murderize them, and finally decided that, yeah, crawling out of bed today?

Really bad move.

“We’re allllll gonna die,” she muttered.

It’d seemed like a pretty sensible plan at the time, too….

They’d motored from Babel Tower less than five hours ago, and talking true, Lemon was still trying to wrap her head around it all. The throwdown with Gabriel and his lifelikes. The blood on the chrome. The murder of Silas Carpenter. The look in Eve’s eyes as the bullet wounds in her chest slowly knitted closed.

“What’s happening to me?”

Lemon had thought of Silas as her own grandpa, and the memory of his death was a fresh, hard kick to her chest. But right on top of Mister C’s murder had come the revelation that the girl Lemon had known for two years, the girl she thought of as her bestest…that girl was a robot. Eve wasn’t Eve at all. She was a lifelike, modeled after Nicholas Monrova’s lost and youngest daughter, Ana.

True cert, and strange as it was, Lemon couldn’t give a faulty credstik if her bestest was a bot. Growing up in Dregs, you learned to stick by your friends no matter what. Rule Number One in the Scrap:

Stronger together, together forever.

But Eve…

After all the years and all the spills and all the hurt…

…She still sent me away.

Lemon hadn’t wanted to bail. But her radiation gear had been wrecked in the tussle, and the reactor in Babel Tower was still leaking—she didn’t know how many rads she’d sucked up already. And whatever her feelings on the topic, Cricket wouldn’t let her stick around anyways. The First Law of Robotics just wouldn’t allow him to. So, with tears streaming down her face, she and Cricket and Ezekiel had slunk away from the heart of that hollow tower, away from the Myriad supercomputer that contained every one of Nicholas Monrova’s dirty secrets, and away from the girl who was nothing close to a girl at all.

They’d had their pick of vehicles in the GnosisLabs armory. In the end, Ezekiel had settled on a grav-tank, big and bulky and bristling with guns. It’d be slower going, but the tank’s cushion of magnetized particles would handle any terrain, and its rad-proof armor plating would offer better protection out on the Glass. Heart like lead in her chest, Lemon had taken one last look at the tower where her bestest had decided to remain. And then, bad as it hurt, they’d left her behind.

Ezekiel drove, and Lemon sulked, the kilometers grinding away in silence. They’d avoided the broken freeway where they’d fought the Preacher, heading west toward the setting sun. Lemon fought her sobs the whole way. Cricket plodded behind, looking back over his shoulder as Babel grew smaller and smaller still.

Before he’d died, Grandpa had transferred the little bot’s consciousness into the Quixote—GnosisLabs’ champion logika gladiator. The little fug stood seven meters tall now, wrecking-ball fists and urban-camo paintjob, optics burning like little blue suns. He might look like a faceful of hardcore, but Mister C had created Cricket to protect Eve, and Lemon knew the big bot was feeling just as sore as she was about leaving her behind.

It was close to sundown, and they had been making their way through a series of deep sandstone gullies when the ambush hit. Lemon had been sitting in the gunner’s seat, sucking down some bottled water and fighting a growing nausea in her belly. She’d heard a faint whistle, a shuddering boom, and half the gully wall just collapsed right on top of them. As the dust cleared, Lemon had realized the front half of their tank was buried under rubble. If she and Zeke were riding something with a little less armor, they’d already be fertilizer.

Cricket had disappeared under an avalanche of broken sandstone. Ezekiel had gunned the engine hard, but the tank didn’t have the grunt to drag itself free of all that weight. That’s when the first rocket streaked down from above, lighting up their hull with a blossom of bright, crackling flame.

“We’re allllll gonna die,” Lemon muttered.

Dusk was deepening, but the tank’s cams were thermographic. Lem scoped two rocket emplacements on the gully walls above. They were protected by sandbags, crewed by three men apiece. The scavvers were wearing piecemeal armor and muddy gold tees underneath, painted with what looked like an oldskool knight’s helmet.

Lem had to give them points for the color-coordinated outfits, but she wondered if these goons actually had any brainmeats inside their skulls. She watched through her gunner cams as the rubble behind them stirred, and a titanic fist punched up from beneath. Servos and engines whining, Cricket pushed himself free, shook himself like a dog to rid himself of the grit and dust.

“THAT TICKLED,” the big bot declared.

“Cricket!” Ezekiel shouted. “Are you okay?”

A deep electronic reply rang out over the radio as another round exploded. “NOTHING A NICE BACK RUB WOULDN’T FIX. IF YOU’RE NOT TOO BUSY?”

“Lemon can’t operate the tank turret. Take care of those rocketeers!”

“…YOU MEAN SHOOT THEM?”

“No, I mean ask them to dinner!” Ezekiel shouted. “Of course shoot them!”

“MISS FRESH,” came the big bot’s reply. “WOULD YOU BE SO KIND AS TO REMIND THIS IDIOT MURDERBOT ABOUT THE FIRST LAW OF ROBOTICS?”

Lemon sighed, spoke by rote. “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a hu—”

Another explosion rocked the tank, and Ezekiel started cursing with way more chops than Lem would’ve given him credit for. Thing was, even though Crick couldn’t lay any kind of hurting on a human, picking a fight with a grav-tank and seventy tons of armored robot gladiator didn’t seem like the most sensible plan. So why had these scavvers decided to—

“…Oh,” Lemon said, blinking at her rear cams.

“Oh what?” Ezekiel called, still gunning the engine.

“Oh, sh—”

Another blast rocked the tank, and Lemon fell clean off her seat, splitting her brow on the controls. Pulling her helmet back on, she hollered into her comms.

“Crick, check our six, we got capital T!”

The big bot turned to face their new pack of trouble. Stomping along the gully behind them came the ugliest machina Lem had ever seen. On its four legs, it only stood three meters high, but it was at least seven long. Cobbled together from the remains of half a dozen other machina, it had a serpentine neck, a couple of old earthmover scoops fashioned into snaggle-toothed jaws. Two floodlights atop the scoops gave the impression of large, glowing eyes.

The machina reminded her of a vid Eve had shown her once. These big lizard things that had romped the planet before humans came along to wreck everything.

Dinosomethings?

Anyway. It was big. And rusty. And stomping right at Cricket.

Its pilot was mostly hidden inside a heavy safety cage, but Lemon could see he was dolled up like his rocket-friends, muddy gold colors and all. His voice was thick and rough, crackling over the machina’s PA system.

“Dunghill knave! I challenge thee!”

Cricket tilted his head. “…UM, WHAT?”

The machina pilot opened up with a pair of autoguns, the shells shattering on Cricket’s hull. The bot raised his hands to shield his optics, sparks and tracer rounds lit up the dusk. Deciding the machina was a bigger threat to Lemon than the rocket crews, Crick charged headlong into its line of fire.

“YOU WAITING FOR AN INVITATION, STUMPY?” he yelled.

Ezekiel spat a final curse and thumped a fist on the console. Sliding out of his chair, he squeezed past Lemon and up into the turret. Zeke was tall, broad-shouldered. Olive skin and short dark curls and bright blue eyes. His right arm was missing below the elbow, but the injury came nowhere close to ruining the picture. Ratcheting the turret hatch open with his good hand, he shot Lemon a wink.

“Stay there, Freckles.”

“True cert,” she nodded. “I’m too pretty to die.”

Pushing the hatch open, he was gone. Lemon watched on cams as the lifelike dashed off, skipping sideways to avoid another rocket blast. He moved like a song through the broken stone, disappearing up the gully into the smoke and the dusk.

“Run, ye three-inch coward!” one of the rocketeers cried.

Meantime, Cricket was toe-to-toeing the enemy machina. Crick was still getting used to his new body—the old one had been forty centimeters tall, after all, and he clearly wasn’t quite at home in the body of a seven-meter-high WarBot. But the Quixote had been made by the best techs in Gnosis R & D, and Crick’s strength was scarygood. With one titanic fist, he crushed the machina’s autoguns to scrap, tearing them off in a hail of sparks. The scavver pilot reared his machina up onto its hind legs, roared into the PA.

“Have at thee, villain!”

A burst of fire exploded from the machina’s jaws, engulfing Cricket in blue flame. A blast like that would’ve probably melted his old bod to slag, and instinctively, Crick flinched away with a booming, electronic yelp. The machina pilot followed up with a swipe from one massive front leg, smashing the logika into the gully wall. A victorious cry went up from the rocketeers above.

“A hit!”

“A very palpable hit!”

“Who are these goons?” Lemon muttered, shaking her head.

Cricket climbed back onto his feet as the machina crashed into him, seizing one of his arms in those earthmover jaws. Crick struck back, tearing away the panelwork at the beast’s throat to expose the hydraulics beneath.

Meanwhile, Ezekiel had climbed the cliffs farther down the gully, and made his way back under the cover of dusk. Thanks to the Libertas virus, lifelikes weren’t beholden to the First Law, and Ezekiel had proved in the past he had no problems with grievous bodily harm when it came to protecting his friends. He stole up behind the scavvers in the first rocket emplacement, and without ceremony, booted one over the sandbags and onto the jagged rocks ten meters below.

Cricket ripped loose a handful of cables from the machina’s throat, hydraulic fluid spewing from the rends. The jaws lost pressure and Crick pulled his arm free, raising one enormous fist to slam the head into the ground. But before the blow could land, his optics began flickering, and the big bot wobbled on his feet.

He took a step backward, struggling to keep his balance.

“I DON’T FEEL SO…”

The machina pivoted, its massive tail knocking Cricket back up the gully. The big bot tumbled along the ground, crashing to a halt against the grav-tank’s rear. Lemon fell out of her seat again, wiping the blood from her split eyebrow as she peered at cams. The big bot was trying to stand, but his movements were sluggish, clumsy, like he’d spent a hard night on the home brew.

“Crick, what’s wrong?” she asked.

“I DON’T…”

“…Crick, you gotta get up!”

The dinomachina was stomping toward him, jaws limp, one floodlight smashed. Ezekiel had leapt the six meters across the gully to the other emplacement, and was busy ending the second crew. But as Lemon watched, the scavver pilot slapped a control pad in his cockpit, and a cluster of short-range rockets popped from the machina’s shoulders, ready to unload right at Zeke’s exposed back.

“Fat-kidneyed rascal!” the scavver cried.

The situation had turned a deep shade of ugly.

Lemon knew she should stay in the tank. It was safer there. She was still aching and tired from the Babel throwdown, and feeling kinda queasy, talking true. But Cricket was her friend. Ezekiel was her friend. And beat and sick though she felt, Lemon had lost enough friends already today. Without thinking, she lunged toward the tank’s hatch, popped up into the smoke and flame. And fixing the machina in her stare, she dragged her cherry-red bangs from her eyes, pulled her helmet on tighter and stretched out her hand.

She’d been twelve years old when she first used It. Just a skinny little scavvergirl, scratching out a living on the meanstreets of Los Diablos. It’d been late at night outside the Skin District, and she’d stolen a credstik, slipped it into an auto-peddler for a quick meal. But the automata had swallowed her stik, no food to show for it, and Lem had just lost it. Rage boiling in her empty belly. A gray static, building up behind her eyes. She’d made a fist and punched the bot, and the automata had spat sparks and burst clean open, spewing cans of Neo-Meat™ from its belly.

She’d snatched up a few meals and run. Fast and far as she could before the Graycoats or the Brotherhood saw her. Knowing from that very first moment she had to hide it, lie on it, stomp it down and never show or tell anyone what she was.

Trashbreed.

Abnorm.

Deviate.

Now, looking at the big, lumbering machina, Lemon pictured that auto-peddler. Felt that gray static building up behind her eyes. Fingers stretched toward it.

And then she made a fist.

The machina bucked like someone had punched it. Hydraulics shrieked, power cables burst, a blinding shear of electrical current arced across its rusting skin. The pilot screamed, frying inside the cockpit as the voltage lit him up, as his machina stumbled and crumpled like paper into a smoking, sparking heap.

Fried to ruins.

Just like that.

Behind her, the last rocketeer plunged into the gully floor with an awful, wet crunch. Ezekiel shouted down from the emplacement above.

“You okay, Freckles?”

Lemon hauled off her helmet, blinking blood from her eye. Her heart was hammering in her chest, but she put on her braveface. Her streetface. The face that told the world she was big enough to handle anything it threw at her and more.

“Toldja already, Dimples. I’m too pretty to die.”

She grabbed a chem-extinguisher with shaking hands, climbed out of the turret and doused the burning hull. Jumping onto the tank’s rear, she sized up Cricket. The big bot was dented and scratched from his brawl, but his paintjob was apparently flame-retardant, so the good news was he wasn’t on fire.

“You okay, you little fug?”

“I…THINK SO?” The big bot shrugged. “AND D-DON’T CALL ME LITTLE.”

Ezekiel carefully scaled down from the emplacement, dropping the final three meters onto the rocks below. Dusting his palm against his battered jeans, he made his way across the broken stone, fugazi blue eyes on the fallen logika.

“What happened?”

“EAT IT, STUMPY,” the big bot growled. “A NICE BIG BOWL OF IT.”

“Seriously, Crick,” Lemon said. “Are you all right?”

“YEAH. I’M…GOOD? I TH-THINK?”

Cricket stood on wobbling legs, the glow of his optics flickering and fluttering. He steadied himself against the gully wall, barely able to keep himself upright. Ezekiel sighed, and spinning on his heel, he climbed into the tank. A few moments later, he emerged with a heavy toolbox under his one good arm.

“Sit down,” he said, motioning to the broken rock. “Let me have a look.”

“…YOU’RE SUGGESTING I LET YOU POKE AROUND INSIDE ME?” Cricket fixed the lifelike in a flickering stare. “I THOUGHT LEMON WAS THE COMEDIAN IN THIS OUTFIT.”

Lemon frowned at the big bot. “Wait, I thought you were the comedy relief, and I was the lovable sidekick?”

“Cricket, if there’s something wrong with you, maybe I can spot it,” Ezekiel said. “I know a little about bots. Not as much as Eve, but a little.”

The mention of her bestest’s name brought a fresh ache in Lemon’s chest, a stillness to the group. Ezekiel glanced back toward Babel, and she could see how bad he was hurting, too. They’d had no choice. Evie had told them to leave. But…

“DON’T YOU DARE SAY HER NAME,” the logika growled.

Ezekiel blinked, turned back to the logika.

“I miss her, too, Cricket,” he murmured.

“OF COURSE YOU DO, MURDERBOT,” Cricket said. “THAT’S WHY YOU RAN AWAY FROM HER AS FAST AS YOU COULD.”

“She told me to leave,” Ezekiel said, his voice rising with his temper. “This was her choice. The first one she ever had in her life, don’t you get that?”

The big logika’s massive metal hands spangspangspanggged as he brought them together in a round of applause.

“OH, MISTER EZEKIEL, YOU’RE MY HERO.”

Lemon raised her hands, stepped between them. “Now, now, boys—”

“Go to hell, Cricket,” Ezekiel hissed. “What do you know about it?”

“I KNOW YOU LEFT HER BEHIND,” the bot growled, standing taller as his voice grew louder. “I KNOW EVERYBODY LIED TO HER! EVERYBODY BETRAYED HER! SILAS, LEMON, HER FATHER, YOU! CAN YOU IMAGINE FOR ONE MINUTE WHAT THAT FELT LIKE?”

“I didn’t want t—”

“AND THEN SHE FINDS OUT SHE’S NOT EVEN HUMAN AND YOU CLAIM TO LOVE HER AND YOU JUST LEFT HER THERE!”

Lemon’s heart was hammering. Every one of Cricket’s words was like a bullet fired right at Ezekiel’s chest. She saw them strike. Saw the rage welling up in the lifelike’s eyes, twisting his hands into fists.

“So did you,” he spat at the bot.

The blue of Cricket’s optics burned into a furious white.

“YOU ROTTEN SONOFA…”

A two-ton fist came crashing down on the spot Ezekiel had stood a split second before, the ground shattering like glass. Cricket roared in shapeless rage, swung at Ezekiel again, the lifelike once more slipping aside. The big bot tried to scoop him up, but Ezekiel was faster, darting between Cricket’s legs and leaping up to seize hold of the armor plating on his lower back with his one good hand.

“Cricket, are you crazy?” Lemon shouted.

Cricket roared again, his voice box crackling at the volume. He slapped at the lifelike as if he were an insect, massive hands clanging against his hull like some great, booming gong. Ezekiel’s superhuman agility was all that saved him from being pulverized, the lifelike hauling himself up the seams and rivets in the WarBot’s impenetrable hull until he reached his shoulder.

“Cricket, stop!” Lemon wailed. “STOP IT!”

The logika fell still immediately at the girl’s command. He bristled with outrage, glowing optics fixed on the lifelike perched atop his shoulder.

“YOU’RE LUCKY SOME OF US STILL OBEY THE THREE LAWS, M-MOTH…”

The big bot swayed, his optics flickering again.

“Crick…are you okay?” Lemon called.

“I D-DON’T FEEL S-SO…”

The light in the logika’s optics flickered one final time and went out completely. His towering body wobbled a second longer, then fell like a collapsing skyscraper. Seventy tons of WarDome champion came falling right at Lemon’s head, and she shrieked as she dove aside, hitting the gully floor, elbows grinding in the gravel as Cricket crashed to the ground with a boom.

Ezekiel picked himself up from the dust, ran to the girl’s side.

“Are you all right?” he asked, helping her to her feet.

Lemon winced, pawed at her bloody brow, her bleeding arms. But her eyes were fixed on Cricket. The big bot had dropped like someone had shot him, and now lay motionless on the broken ground.

“What the hells just happened?” she whispered.

Ezekiel looked the big bot over, hands on hips. Walking to the tank’s toolbox, he started rummaging around inside. “Let’s find out.”

Lemon watched, chewing her lip with worry as the lifelike took a power drill and began unbolting a maintenance hatch on Cricket’s chestplate.

“Um, do you know what you’re doing, by any chance?” she asked.

Zeke mumbled around the bolts held between his teeth. “Not really, no.”

“Oh, goody.”

Ezekiel pulled back the small armor plate and looked over the readouts inside. He poked and prodded, his pretty brow furrowed, finally leaning back with a sigh.

“Power,” he declared.

Lemon blinked. “He’s outta juice?”

“I’m not an expert, but yeah, looks like.” Zeke tapped a series of LED readouts inside the cavity. “Batteries are at one percent. Been sitting inactive inside that R & D bay for two years, his levels must have run close to zero through disuse. Should’ve checked them before we left, I guess. Stupid of me.”

“Um,” Lemon said. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any spares in your pockets?”

“From the look of them, these powercells weigh about a ton apiece.”

“So that’s a no?”

The lifelike glanced back over his shoulder again, brow creased in thought. His voice was almost too soft for Lemon to hear.

“They’d have spares back at Babel, though. In the armory.”

“…You wanna go back? We just left!”

He looked from the hollow tower in the distance, back to their broken bot. “Got a better idea?”

“Our tank is buried under a squillion tons of rock, Dimples.”

“There’s no such thing as a squillion. But yeah, I noticed.”

“So wait, lemme get this straight.” Lemon folded her arms. “You’re suggesting we walk back across a couple of hundred kilometers of irradiated wasteland, to a tower full of murderbots who’ll probably be back up and moving by the time we arrive? And then drag one-ton batteries back out here, hoping the other dustnecks who live in this gully haven’t stripped Cricket for parts in the meantime?”

“…You raise a good point.”

Lemon gave a shoddy curtsy. “Several, I think you’ll find.”

Ezekiel pouted, rubbing his chin in thought.

“You’re right,” he finally declared. “You should stay here in the tank.”

“…You wanna leave me here by myself?”

“It’s not a plan without flaws.” Ezekiel shrugged. “But it’s safer here inside this thing’s armor, and I’ll move quicker alone. And, again…if you’ve got a better one?”

Lemon plopped down onto the turret. She knew less about logika than Ezekiel did, which was a nice way of saying she knew nothing at all. And if there was a problem with Crick’s power supply, a fresh battery sounded like the only kind of fix.

But going back there meant maybe running into Gabriel. Faith. Eve.

Going back to Babel meant leaving her here alone.

Abandoned.

Again.

Lemon pulled off her helmet, brushed the dirt off her freckles. She racked her skull for another way out of this, but she’d never been the brains of their outfit. If there was a smarter play to make, true cert, she couldn’t see it.

“You know, crawling out of bed today?”

Lemon shook her head and sighed.

“Really bad move.”

2.2 Jacked

“Now remember, stay in the tank,” Zeke said.

Lemon rubbed at the bandage he’d placed over her split brow. “Yes, Dad.”

“Keep the hatch sealed, no matter what.” The lifelike reached into the weapons locker, shoved a heavy pistol down the back of his grubby jeans. “I don’t care if a guy knocks on the door offering free pony rides, you keep it shut.”

“Ponies are extinct.”

“You remember what I showed you about the guns, right? This is your targeting system. When it’s locked, you trip the safety and fire with this.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Just keep your head down. I’ll be back before you can say ‘Ezekiel is the bravest and most handsomest boy I know.’ ”

“…I see what you did there, Dimples.”

The lifelike knelt beside her. He was smiling at his own joke, but she could see concern in his baby blues. “Look, I’ll be quick, okay? I move fast, I don’t tire easily. As soon as I get the powercells and wheels, I’ll run straight back here.”

“You sure you’re just going back there for batteries?” she asked softly.

“…What other reason would I have?”

Lemon raised one eyebrow, fixed him in a withering stare.

“I’m not going back for Eve,” the lifelike insisted.

“Rrrrrright.”

“She’s not Ana, Lemon,” Ezekiel said. “She never was.”

Lemon chewed her lip, trying to fight the weight that had been growing on her shoulders ever since they left Babel. She knew there were more important things to worry about, that now wasn’t really the time. Still, she couldn’t help but ask.

“Okay, so how long until you bail on me for real, then?”

Ezekiel blinked, taken aback. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, that’s your plan, right?” Lemon looked hard into those fugazi eyes. “Myriad told us the real Ana Monrova is still out there somewhere. Hurt maybe, but still alive. Daddy Monrova hid her. And you’re all head over heels for her. So you’re eventually gonna wanna find her, right?”

“…I hadn’t really thought about it.”

Lemon rolled her eyes. “Rule Number Seven in the Scrap, Dimples. Never scam a scammer.”

The lifelike sighed, looked up through the open hatch to the night above. This deep in the wastes, you could actually see a few of the brighter stars up there, struggling to shine through the curtain of pollution and airborne fallout. The starlight kissed Ezekiel’s cheeks, gleamed in his eyes, and Lemon’s chest hurt a little at the sight of him. She knew he’d never belong to her. That the warm fuzzy she got in her belly when he called her Freckles was never going to be more than that.

But damn he was pretty….

A tiny light shot overhead, twinkling as it fell toward the horizon. Lemon watched it spin through the dark, wondering if she should make a wish.

“Shooting star,” she murmured.

Ezekiel followed the falling light with those pretty plastic eyes, shaking his head. “It’s just a satellite. There’s thousands up there. Left over from before the Fall.”

“Sometimes I wonder if your maker put any romance in your soul at all, Dimples,” she said sourly. “And other times, I think they gave you way too much.”

“Have you ever been in love, Lemon?” he asked.

“Nah.” Lemon sniffed, wiped her nose on her grubby sleeve. “I kissed a boy named Chopper a few times. He was a gutter runner in Dregs like me. It was nice. But then he got a little gropey and I kinda sorta broke his nose a little bit.”

Ezekiel smiled lopsided, his dimple on high beam, and Lemon’s belly went all tingly despite herself.

“You will be one day,” he promised. “I know it. And then you’ll understand.”

“…You’re in love with Ana, huh? Got it real bad.”

“Yeah,” the lifelike replied, fervor in his eyes. “But the good kind of bad.”

“But you loved Eve, too.”

“I thought Eve was Ana, Lemon.”

The girl sighed, flipped her bangs from her eyes. “Look, Dimples, I didn’t spend too long in that tower, but I’m smart enough to know the girl who grew up in a palace like that had about zero in common with the girl you met in Dregs. Eve is Eve. Riotgrrl. Botdoc. Hard as nails. And you still loved her. I love her, too. So why are we just leaving her behind? Why don’t we both go back there and get her?”

The lifelike thought a long while before he answered.

“This is Eve’s choice, Lemon. And she never really had one before now. I know it’s hard, but we can’t force her to leave. That’d make us just as bad as Monrova and Silas.” He ran his hand over his stubbled chin and sighed. “Ana was the girl who taught me what it was to be alive. And if she’s still out there somewhere? I owe it to her to find her. These past two years, walking through this wasteland…Sometimes thoughts of her were all that kept me going.”

“So let’s say fairy tales come true and you manage to track her down,” Lemon said. “What if the girl you find isn’t the girl you remember?”

“She’ll always be the girl I remember. She’s the girl who made me real.”

Lemon felt fear dig its icy fingers inside of her. Ever since she’d been left behind in that detergent box as a bub, she’d been afraid of being alone. It’d taken her years to work up the courage to trust Evie, trust Silas, trust anyone not to abandon her the way her folks had. And now she was on the verge of losing it all.

“Look, I know she’s important to you,” she told Zeke. “But with Eve staying in Babel and Cricket OOC, I’m rapidly running out of crew. And true cert, without Evie, I don’t even know what I’m doing out here. I’m the sidekick, Dimples. I can’t carry this show by myself.”

Ezekiel’s eyes softened, and he gently squeezed her hand. “I won’t bail on you, Lemon. I’m coming back, I promise.”

Looking into that pretty, plastic blue, Lemon felt a lump rising in her throat. Stomping the tears down with her oversized boots, she tossed her bangs out of her face and replied with her customary bravado.

“Spit on it, then.”

“…What?”

Lemon spat into her palm, offered it to the lifelike.

“Rule Number Nine in the Scrap. Spit makes it stick.”

With a smirk, Ezekiel spat into his hand, sealed the pact with a shake. Lemon felt the weight on her shoulders ease off a little. The night shine a little brighter.

“Okay,” she said, raising a finger to his face. “Don’t be a welcher now.”

Ezekiel smiled, pulled the oversized gunner’s helmet back on Lemon’s head. “Stay in the tank. Pony-ride salesmen or no. I’ll take one of these headsets, so if you want anything, you just yell, all right?”

Lemon pressed the transmit button on her comms rig and yelled, “Clean socks! And something to read!”

Zeke ripped off his headset with a wince.

“Walked into that one,” Lemon grinned.

The lifelike leaned down and kissed the top of her helmet. “Stay safe.”

Ezekiel stole off into the night, just as quiet as the rest of it.

With a sad sigh, Lemon locked the hatch behind him.

She woke to the strangest sound.

Lemon’s eyes shot open, and though she was sitting in the turret of a top-of-the-line killing machine, she reached instinctively for the small knife stashed in her belt buckle. She used to slit pockets with it, back in her Los Diablos days. Slit anyone who got too far into her face, too, talking true.

Seeing no immediate threat, Lemon pawed the crusties from her eyes. From the heat radiating through the tank hull, she guessed the sun was already up—she must’ve slept the whole night away. Did she imagine that noise or did she…

Nope. There it goes again.

It was weird. A sort of bubbly gurgling. And with growing alarm, Lemon realized it was coming from her own stomach.

“Ohhhh, crap…”

Lemon leaned forward and vomited all over the floor. It was the kind of sick that left you feeling like you’d been hollowed out with a spork. Groaning, she wiped the puke off her chin just in time to vomit again. Eyes filled with tears, toes curling, she gave the can of Neo-Meat™ she’d scoffed last night right back to the world.

“Urgggg,” she moaned at the end of it. “Septic.”

She drew a few shuddering breaths, trying to make up her mind if she was going to chuck again. Deciding she was safe for the moment, she grabbed her bottle of H₂O, rinsed her mouth and realized too late that she had nowhere to spit.

Ezekiel had ordered her not to leave the tank.

He’d been very specific about it.

Cheek ballooning, Lemon stabbed at her console, lighting up the turret cams. She could see the ruins of the scavvers’ machina outside, the tumbled sandstone, Cricket lying sprawled where he’d fallen.

Looks safe enough?

Deciding Dimples would have been a little more relaxed if he knew she’d be trapped in here with the stink of fresh vomit, Lemon cranked open the hatch, stuck her head up and spat. Rinsing her mouth, she spat again, pulling down her goggles against the blinding light and peering at the gully around her.

The sun had only just cleared the horizon, but the air around her was already rippling—it was going to be a feral day. Lemon scoped the rocks one last time, but seeing no trouble, she crawled out of the tank to escape the smell. Her belly was aching kinda fierce, her hands a little shaky.

Hopping down to the dirt, she made her way around to peer up into Cricket’s face. His new head was styled like an oldskool warrior helmet from the history virtch—a smooth faceplate, square jaw and heavy brow, his once-bright-blue optics now dark.

“Crick?”

Lemon heard a buzzing in her ear, swiped at a fat blowfly circling her head.

“You hear me, you little fug?”

The bot made no reply. The girl sighed, rubbing at her stomach. She’d tossed up everything she’d eaten, but she still felt puketastic, her skin damp with sweat. She took an experimental swig of water, swallowed with a wince. She’d never heard of a can of Neo-Meat™ going bad before—the stuff was more preservatives than actual food. Maybe it’d been locked inside the tank too long?

The blowfly returned, swooping in lazy circles about her head. She took another half-hearted swipe, but as it buzzed up into her face, Lemon realized it wasn’t a fly at all. It was a fat, angry-looking bumblebee.

She’d only ever seen pics of them on the history virtch—she’d always been taught they’d died out before the Quake, so it was true strange to see one all the way out here in the wastes. Its little furry bod was banded yellow and black, its sting gleaming. She took a serious swing, almost knocking it out of the air. Buzzing angrily, the bumblebee beat a hasty retreat back over the gully walls.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Lemon growled after it. “Tell your friends, friendo.”

She wondered where Ezekiel was, how close he’d got to Babel. Realizing she could just ask, she climbed up onto the tank, reached inside for her helmet. As she pulled it onto her head, she noticed the bumblebee had returned, sitting on the hatch beside her hand. It flapped its wings, gave a furious little buzz.

“Back for more, eh?” she scowled. “You have chosen poorly, little one.”

Lemon slowly pulled off her boot, raised it high above her head…just as another bumblebee buzzed out of the sky and landed right on the tip of her nose.

“Oh, craaaap,” she whispered.

Lemon held her breath, staring cross-eyed into the little bugger’s beady black stare.

“…You know, when I said tell your friends, I was just being sassy.”

She heard the droning of lazy wings in the sunshine heat. She didn’t dare move, eyes fixed on the nose invader’s pointy butt parts. But as the buzzing grew louder, she glanced about, careful not to move her head. She saw a dozen more bumblebees on the gully walls, doing lazy circle-work in the air around her. Moving slow, she tapped the transmit button on her helmet’s commset.

“Um…Dimples?” she asked. “Dimples, do you read me?”

She heard a short crackle of static, Ezekiel’s faint reply.

“Lemon? Is everything okay?”

“Um, that depends. What do bees eat?”

“…What?”

“Seriously, what do they eat?”

“Well, I’m not an expert or anything. But I think they probably eat honey?”

“…Not people?”

“Nnnno. I think it’s safe to assume they don’t eat people. Dare I ask why?”

The air was full of bees now, a swaying, rolling swarm, filling the air with a droning hum. Lemon heard soft, scuffing footsteps above, slowly craned her neck to look at the gully walls overhead. Lem saw a strange woman standing on the ridge above, looking down at her.

She was tall, pretty, deep brown skin. Her hair was woven into long, sharp dreadlocks. Her eyes were a strange, glittering gold—Lemon figured they must be cybernetics of some sort. She was wearing a long desert-red cloak despite the heat, a strange rifle slung on her back. Under the cloak, she wore a suit of what might’ve been black rubber, dusty from a long road, skintight and molded with strange bumps and ridges over some serious curves.

I’ve seen that kind of outfit before….

Lemon was motionless, bee still perched on her nose, eyes fixed on the stranger above. The woman peeled aside the high collar of her suit, exposing the throat beneath. Lemon’s belly ran cold as she realized that the woman’s skin was pocked with dozens, maybe hundreds, of tiny hexagonal holes.

Honeycombed…

More bumblebees were crawling through her hair, along her face, across her smile. And as Lemon watched, dozens more swarmed out from beneath the strange woman’s skin.

“Oh, spank my spankables,” the girl whispered.

The woman looked down at Lemon, golden eyes gleaming.

“Lemonfresh,” she said. “We have been hunting her.”

Endless dunes and jagged rocks and dust as far as the eye could see. Ezekiel cut through the wasteland with a long loping stride, the kilometers disappearing beneath his boots. He was making good time; he figured he’d be back at Babel by sundown. He could see the tower ahead, rising up from the horizon in its double-helix spiral, his shadow stretching toward it.

He didn’t know what he’d do when he got there, truth told. If Gabriel and Faith had recovered from the beatings they’d taken, if Eve…

Eve.

He didn’t really know what to do about her, either. He’d not talked to Lemon about their last exchange right before he left the tower. The veiled threats the newly awakened lifelike had made. The dangerous gleam in Eve’s eye as she’d spoken those final, fateful words.

“Next time we meet? I don’t think it’s going to turn out the way you want it to.”

He wasn’t quite sure what she’d meant. Eve was furious, he knew that. About the lies Silas and Nicholas Monrova had heaped on her. The false life they’d built her. She had a right to be angry. With them. With him. But Lemon had been correct—even if he did love Ana, a part of him had loved Eve, too.

Is that why you’re headed back there?

So soon after leaving?

It was more than the fact she was Ana’s doppelgänger. Eve had a strength and determination he’d never seen in the original Ana. A fire and resourcefulness, born from years of clawing out a living in a trashpit like Dregs. But if Eve threw her lot in with Gabriel, or worse, their brother Uriel, if she used that fire to aid his siblings in ridding the world of the dinosaur that had been humanity…

What could she become?

“Um…Dimples? Dimples, do you read me?”

The lifelike slowed his pace, tapped the receiver on his headset.

“Lemon?” he asked. “Is everything okay?”

“Um, that depends. What do bees eat?”

“…What?”

“Seriously, what do they eat?”

Ezekiel rubbed his chin, wondering what the girl was on about. “Well, I’m not an expert or anything. But I think they probably eat honey?”

“…Not people?”

“Nnnno. I think it’s safe to assume they don’t eat people. Dare I ask why?”

“Oh, spank my spankables…”

“Freckles? Are y—”

“Dimples, help!” came the crackling plea. “There’s a cr—”

A squeal of static washed over the headset, and the transmission died.

“Lemon?” Ezekiel tapped the headset. “Lemon, can you hear me?”

Nothing. No reply at all. But he’d caught the fear and adrenaline in her voice, and with a curse, he turned and began running back the way he’d come. No easy loping stride this time, but a furious, flat-out sprint. His teeth were gritted, his arm pumping, boots pounding the dirt. He yelled her name into the commset, got no answer, the fear in his belly blooming into a freezing panic.

He’d told her to stay in the tank. She should’ve been safe there. What on earth could’ve gotten to her inside a shell of rad-proofed armor plating?

Unless she got out…

You never should have left her.

He ran. Fast as he could. He’d never pushed himself as hard in his short life, his heart thundering, veins pumping acid. He was the peak of physical perfection, generated in the GnosisLabs to be more than human. But in the end, he was only bone and muscle, blood and meat. Even pounding the dust as quick as he could, hours had passed by the time he arrived, the sun burning high in the sky, his skin and clothes drenched with sweat. The gully was deathly silent. Like a tomb. Like that cell in Babel in the moments after he and his siblings had murdered the Monrova family. As he’d raised the gun to Eve’s head and whispered those two meaningless words.

“I’m sorry.”

The tank was exactly where he’d left it. But the hatch was open, and worse, there was no sign of Lemon or Cricket. Ezekiel drew his heavy pistol, crept through the rocks, listening intently with his enhanced senses and hearing nothing. He leapt up onto the tank, peered inside, saw it had been partially stripped—the computer gear, the cannon ammunition, the radio equipment was all gone. They’d tried to bust into the weapons locker, but hadn’t been able to burn through the metal.

In front of the scorched cabinet door sat Lemon’s helmet, spattered with vomit and a few drops of blood. And beside it lay a couple of squashed bugs.

No…not bugs…

Bees…?

He knelt by the little corpses, picked them both up and cradled them in his palm. His eyes were good enough to count the freckles on a girl’s face in a fraction of a second, track a moth in a midnight sky. Squinting at the insects, he saw the pair were twins—not just similar, but identical, down to the number of hairs on their bodies, the facets of their eyes. And turning them over on his palm, the lifelike saw the stripes on their abdomens were arranged in a tiny pattern.

A bar code.

The lifelike closed his fist.

“BioMaas,” he whispered.

2.3 Change

When Ezekiel mentioned pony rides, Lemon was pretty sure this wasn’t what he had in mind.

Maybe the beast had been a horse once, back before BioMaas gene-modded it beyond all recognition. It still had four legs, so that was kind of good news. But as far as Lemon knew—and granted, she’d only ever seen them in the virtch because they’d been extinct for decades—most horses wore their skeletons on the inside.

She was sitting near its neck, her wrists bound in translucent resin. The strange woman sat behind her, one arm about her waist to make sure she didn’t fall. The beast they rode was black, its hide covered in bony ridges—more like organic armor than actual skin. Its eyes were faceted like a fly’s, and Lemon was pretty sure its legs had too many joints. Instead of a mane and tail, it had long, segmented spines that clicked and shushed together as it moved.

They were riding south along the gully at a full gallop. Lemon’s captor was pressed to her back, and the girl realized she could feel a deep buzzing inside the woman’s chest when she exhaled. It made her skin want to crawl right off her bod.

“Where you taking me?” she asked.

“CityHive.”

The woman’s voice trembled like an old electric voxbox, as if her whole chest vibrated when she spoke. It was almost…insectoid.

“The BioMaas capital?” Lemon blinked. “What for?”

“Nau’shi told us about Lemonfresh. Lemonfresh is important. She is needed.”

Nau’shi was the name of the BioMaas kraken that had scooped her and Evie and the rest of her crew out of the waters of Zona Bay. A crew member named Carer had told Lemon the same thing before she’d climbed into the kraken’s lifeboat: “Lemonfresh is important. She is needed.” At the time, Lemon had just figured Carer didn’t have her boots laced all the way to the top. But now…

“I’m no kind of special, okay? So why don’t you just let me go?”

“We cannot, Lemonfresh,” the woman replied. “Only a matter of time before the Lords of the Polluted realize their error.”

“…The Lords of the Polluted?” the girl scoffed. “Is that some new drudge band I shoulda heard of?”

“Daedalus Technologies.”

“Wha—”

“Hsst,” the woman hissed.

Lemon fell silent as a fat bumblebee buzzed down from the sky, coming to rest on the woman’s shoulder. The girl craned her head, watched with horrified fascination as the bug crawled inside one of the hexagonal burrows in the woman’s throat. The woman’s golden eyes blinked rapidly as she softly sighed.

“Trouble ahead.”

“…What kind of trouble?”

“Oldflesh,” she growled.

These gullies seemed to go on forever—probably torn into the earth when the Quake created Zona Bay. Some of the cracks were hundreds of meters across, almost as deep. Lemon and her captor entered the remnants of a town that had collapsed into the fissure when the ground opened up. Toppled buildings and rusty autowrecks, the shell of an old fuel station, long sucked dry. What might’ve been an old sports arena had split clean down the middle, one half toppled nose-first into the rocks. Lemon saw a sign, faded from decades beneath the sun. The same helmet that had adorned the shirts of those scavvers that had jumped them yesterday was painted on it, chipped and faded lettering beneath.

Ahead, two tenements had collapsed together to form a crude archway. Lemon saw their path led right between them. The walls were steep, there was no room to dance—it was a perfect place for an ambush, true cert. Lem felt her heart beating faster, remembering the bushwhacking that had buried their grav-tank. Her eyes roamed the empty windows above, but she couldn’t see zip.

At some unspoken command, the horsething came to a halt on the open ground. The air about them hummed with bees, her captor’s eyes gleaming gold.

“Let us pass, oldflesh,” the agent called. “And remain in this living grave. Or stand in our way, and be sent to your next.”

Lemon caught movement in the ruins around them—a handful of scavvers in those same grubby gold shirts, armed with stub guns and rusty cutters. Heavy footsteps crunched on the asphalt ahead, and Lemon saw a brick wall of a man striding slowly toward them. He wore that old knight’s helm scrawled on a bloodstained jersey, a couple of six-shot stub guns at his belt. His armor was made of hubcaps and rusty street signs.

“Lo, gentlemen!” he drawled to his crew. “On my life, a challenge!”

“Challenge!” roared one of the scavvers.

“Chaaaaallenge!”

The big scavver fixed Lemon’s abductor in his stare, fingers twitching over the shooters at his waist.

“By my heel, ma’am,” he smiled. “I accept.”

The woman didn’t move, but Lemon heard a small humming noise in the back of her throat. The big scavver’s grip closed around his guns just as a fat yellow bumblebee landed on his cheek. He cursed, flinching as the bee sank its stinger into his skin. Lemon heard a chorus of surprised yelps from the buildings around them.

The big scavver swayed, wide eyes fixed on the BioMaas woman. Lemon could see a tracery of fine red veins creeping out along his face where the bee had stuck him. He gasped, clutched at his throat like he couldn’t breathe. Gurgling as he fell to his knees. And quick as a morning-after goodbye, the scavver toppled facedown, dead as the dirt he was kissing.

“Insert fancy swears here…,” Lemon whispered.

From the sounds she heard in the ruins, she guessed the rest of the scavver crew were suffering the same fate as their boss. Lemon heard strangled cries, a few choking prayers. And then?

Nothing but the hymn of tiny wings.

She twisted to look at the woman sitting behind her, her belly cold with fear. Her captor’s face was impassive, dark skin filmed with dust. This close, Lemon could see her dreadlocks weren’t hair at all, but the same kind of segmented spines as the horsething’s mane and tail. Her eyes glittered gold in the scorching light.

“It’s a good thing I already puked this morning,” Lemon said.

That golden stare flickered to her own.

“Lemonfresh has nothing to fear from us.”

“Ooookay?” Lemon said. “Having trouble believing that one, but let’s just run with it for now. Since we’re being all chummy and whatnot, you got a name? You BioMaas folks are usually called what you do, right? I mean, I could just call you Terrorlady or the Doominator, both of those seem to fit pretty good. Am I talking too much? I tend to talk too much when I’m nervous, it’s kind of a reflex thing, I’m trying to get better at it but honestly you have a chest full of killer bees and I think I just felt one land on my neck, so if—”

“We are Hunter,” the woman said. “She can call us Hunter.”

“Right,” Lemon nodded. “Of course you are. Pleased to meet you, Hunter.”

“No, Lemonfresh. Pleasure is ours.”

“…Oh yeah? How you figure that?”

“Look around.”

Fearing some kind of grift, Lemon kept her stare fixed on her captor.

“Look,” Hunter insisted. “Look hard. Then tell us what she sees.”

The girl risked a glance at the wreckage of the old town. The empty shells and dead cars. The sun was burning white, bleaching everything beneath it whiter still. The men who’d wanted to make them corpses had been made corpses themselves. Everyone scrapping and killing over trash that people would’ve just thrown away back in the day. The wind was a whisper, the only thing growing was a thin desert weed, spindly roots digging into the shattered concrete and slowly prying it apart.

In a decade or two, all that would be left of this place was rubble.

“I dunno,” Lemon finally shrugged. “The world?”

“Yes,” Hunter nodded. “And Lemonfresh is the flood that will drown it. The storm that will wash all of it away.”

Hunter smiled, all the way to her eyeteeth.

“Lemonfresh is going to change everything.”

“I don’t feel so fizzy.”

They’d been riding for the best part of the day, and the sun was hot enough to give an aspirin a headache. Hunter had reached into her saddlebags, given Lem a spare cloak, the same rusty desert red as her own. Lemon pulled up the hood to shield her from the scorch, but that only made her sweat buckets and feel sicker.

She’d been tasting off-color since that morning, talking true, but she figured it was just the leftovers from the bad meat, the sad from seeing Grandpa die, leaving Eve behind. Her heart still hurt when she thought on it all, and she didn’t have much else to do. Feeling miserable and all the way helpless. But as the day ground on, the sickness in her belly had roiled, and finally, as they neared sundown, come bubbling up out of her mouth again.

There wasn’t much to puke—just the water she’d been sipping from an odd, leathery flask in Hunter’s saddlebags. But she kept heaving long after her insides were outside, holding on to her belly and wincing in pain.

“I gotta sit…,” she begged. “I gotta sit still for a minute….”

Hunter slowed the horsething’s pace, brought it to a gentle stop. Sliding off the strange beast’s back, she lifted Lemon down onto dry, cracked earth. They’d cleared the maze of gullies a few hours back, and now they were deep into a stretch of blinding salt flats. The ground was like rock beneath her feet. The glare was blinding. If Lemon squinted to the east, past the broken foothills, she could make out the irradiated edge of the Glass.

Thinking of Evie in that tower.

Thinking of the cardboard box she’d been found in as a kid.

Thinking she’d been abandoned all over again.

She thumped down on her hind parts in the dust, toying with the silver five-leafed clover around her neck and feeling sick all the way to her bones. Watching as Hunter unclasped her strange organic armor, peeled it back to expose her honeycombed throat beneath. The woman hummed an off-key song that reminded Lemon of the wind when it stormed in Zona Bay. A dozen bumblebees crawled out from Hunter’s skin, took to the wing, up to the sky and back off to the north.

“That…,” Lemon whispered, “is the freshest strange I’ve ever seen.”

“They will watch,” the woman said.

“For what?”

“Pursuit.”

“You mean my friends.”

“And those not.”

The woman massaged the translucent resin that bound Lemon’s wrists, and the bonds came away like soft, warm putty. Stashing the resin in her cloak, she handed Lemon the leathery water flask, nodded gently.

“Drink,” she urged. “Long road to CityHive.”

Hunter turned to the salt flats behind, slung her strange long-barreled rifle off her back. The weapon was pale, oddly organic, looking like it was made out of a collection of old fish bones. Hunter held it to her shoulder, peered down the long telescopic scope at the horizon. Her back was turned, and Lemon was keenly aware of the cutter in her belt, drawing out the blade with a slow, steady hand.

Fortunately, Lem was also mindful of the dozen ultra-poisonous-if-sorta-cute-and-fuzzy killer bees flying in lazy circles around her captor’s head. And deciding that getting ghosted by bugs was a less than fizzy way to cash her chips, the girl kept the blade hidden in her palm.

Lemon had grown up hard in Dregs. She prided herself on knowing bad news when she saw it. And though Hunter was all the wrong sort of trouble for the wrong sort of people, Lemon didn’t sense any hostility from the woman directed at her. If anything, she seemed…protective? The way she spoke, the way she wrapped an arm around Lemon’s waist as they rode. Standing close and guarding her like a keepsake.

Whatever BioMaas wanted Lemon for, they obviously wanted her alive. But the girl sure as hells wasn’t happy about getting snaffled from her friends.

First chance I get, I gotta…

What?

Run? On foot? Out here in the wastes?

Dammit, Fresh, being gorgeous just won’t cut it here. Time to use that Brain thing people keep telling you about.

Lemon sucked her lip, searching inside her skull for some sort of plan and coming up empty. Hunter reached into a saddlebag, fished out a small rectangular package wrapped in wax paper. Unfolding the wrapping, she held it out on her palm. Lemon squinted at the offering, saw it was a block of mottled green…

…actually she had no idea what it was.

“Does she hunger?” Hunter asked.

“That’s food?”

“Algae. Insects.”

Lemon felt her gorge rising again. “Thanks, I’ll skip it.”

Hunter shrugged, shoved the block into her mouth and chewed soundlessly. Lemon took a swig from the water flask, spat the taste of vomit from her mouth.

Might as well get her talking…

“So how’d you find me, anyways?” she asked.

Hunter ran a hand down the horsething’s flank. “Mai’a smelled her.”

The beast shivered, the mane of spines rasping against each other.

“Look, sorry,” Lemon said. “I know it’s been a while since I had a shower. But I didn’t think I stank bad enough to track me from the BioMaas capital.”

Hunter’s lips curled in a motherly smile. “Had scent from Lemonfresh’s blood sample taken aboard kraken. Nau’shi’s Carer did not realize how important Lemonfresh was, or she never would have been released in first place. But we knew where Lemonfresh came ashore. Tracked her from there. A Hunter never misses our mark.”

“Our mark?”

“We are legion, Lemonfresh,” the woman said. “We are hydra.”

Lemon sucked her lip, unsure what to say. She supposed by “legion” that Hunter meant the whole of BioMaas—that the corporation had tasked a posse of folks toward Lemon’s capture. But still, she had no real idea what BioMaas’s agenda was, why they wanted her. Her nausea was kicking up and the heat was unbearable. She pulled off the cloak Hunter had given her, just to feel the breeze on her skin.

“S-so why’d they send you after me?” she finally asked.

Hunter lowered her rifle, slung it over her back once more.

“Because the Polluted—Daedalus—will eventually realize their error. They sent their cyborg tracker after Lemonfresh’s friend. The half-life.”

“Her name is Evie,” Lemon muttered, feeling stung.

Hunter nodded. “Daedalus believed she was the Gifted one. Once they understand Lemonfresh is the threat, they will set hounds to her heels.”

“Hold up,” Lemon said, blinking hard. “I’m no threat to anyone.”

“Lemonfresh can destroy the Polluted’s machines. All they have, all they are, runs on electrical current. And she is current’s bane.”

Lemon rubbed at her aching temples. Ezekiel had already told her as much—he’d said a weapon that could fry electronic tech with a wave of her hand could win the war between the long-feuding CorpStates of BioMaas Incorporated and Daedalus Technologies. Daedalus obviously agreed, which was why they’d set the Preacher on Eve’s tail.

And once they’ve figured out I’m the devia—

Without warning, Lemon rolled up onto her knees, vomiting all over her cloak. She groaned, holding her belly as it spasmed again. Running on empty, she dry-heaved anyway, cherry bob hanging in her eyes.

“Is she well?” Hunter asked.

“Is sh-she k-kidding?” Lemon moaned.

Hunter knelt beside the girl, concern shining in those golden eyes. She pressed a palm to Lemon’s brow, gently wiped the sweat off her freckled cheeks. Lemon felt a couple of deathbees crawling over her face, but she was feeling entirely too pukey to panic. Hunter leaned close, peered into Lemon’s eyes, inhaled deeply along her skin.

“She went to the glass land,” she declared. “Or the dead spire.”

“Babel?” Lemon winced. “Y-yeah, I might’ve…dropped in for a quick drink.”

Hunter scowled. “The death is in her. The sickness from its sundered heart.”

“…Radiation?”

Lemon’s stomach sank as Hunter nodded. She knew she’d sucked up a few rads when Gabriel tore her suit, but she didn’t realize she’d been dosed enough to get sick. Still, there was no fooling the churn in her gut, the fever burning on her skin. Apparently she’d worn a dose hard enough to hurt her.

Maybe worse?

“Am…am I gonna die?”

“We do not know. They could treat her in CityHive. But it is far.”

Fear crawled up her throat, cinching it tight. Lemon had seen firsthand what radsick could do to a person. Back when she was a sprog, a kid named Chuffs had scavved a leaky reactor out of an old war logika out in the Scrap, not knowing it was still hot. He’d been bleeding out of everywhere he possibly could’ve when he died.

“Can’t you radio them to come get us or s-something?” she asked.

Hunter’s face soured. “We do not use the tech of the oldflesh. We have sent word on the wind”—she motioned to her bees—“but it will take time to fly.”

Lemon swallowed hard.

“Time I don’t have?”

“We are not experts. We stay away from deadplaces. We do not sicken.”

Lemon clenched her teeth, trying to keep on her streetface. Her braveface. But after all she’d been through, cashing her chips out here in the wastes from a dose of radsick didn’t exactly strike her as exactly fair. She was only fifteen or sixteen years old. If she hadn’t got wrapped up in all this lifelike crap, Daedalus, BioMaas, she wouldn’t even be here. And now she was gonna get ghosted for it?

“This,” she declared, “is a little far from fizzytown.”

Hunter stood slowly, looking to the horizon.

“…Town,” she repeated.

Lemon tilted her head. “What?”

The BioMaas operative nodded.

“West. Near ocean. A settlement, carved from the deadworld. New Bethlehem. Old Gnosis city, now ruled by others. We have not ventured there since Gnosis fell. Very dangerous. But wealthy. They would have medicine.”

Lemon had never heard of the place, but that came as no surprise—she’d never left Dregs till a few days ago. The “very dangerous” part didn’t sound like a fistful of fun. But when you’re looking down the barrel at your own funeral, even doing something stupid sounds better than doing nothing at all.

The sickly feeling was swelling in her middle, stretching toward her bones. As Hunter reached down to help her up, she had to beg off for a minute to pull herself together. The operative busied herself with Mai’a instead, giving the horsething a drink from the flask, strapping her strange rifle to its flank. Lemon stashed her cutter back in her belt, finally pulled herself up onto her feet with a groan.

“Her cloak,” Hunter said, nodding.

Lemon eyed the garment. “Um, I’m not sure what the fashion is in CityHive, but I’d rather not wear my own vomit, if it’s all the same to you.”

Hunter took off her own cloak, wrapped it about Lemon’s shoulders. Again, Lemon was struck by the feeling of protectiveness, of Hunter’s concern for her well-being. It made her feel pulled every which way—angry that she’d been jacked from her friends, but glad she was in the hands of someone who actually seemed to give a speck whether she lived or died.

Lemonfresh is important.

She is needed.

Lemon offered her wrists to Hunter, but the woman shook her head. Truth was, the pair both knew Lemon had nowhere to run now. With Hunter’s help, the girl scrambled up onto Mai’a’s neck.

“Hold on,” the woman said, climbing up behind. “We ride swift.”

The horsething sprang into a gallop, the salt flats swallowed up under its smooth strides. Lemon could see mountains ahead, the beginning of a long, shattered road. She held on for dear life, fighting the churn in her belly, the fear slowly growing beside it.

Behind them, the wind picked up on the salt flats, the dust and grit scouring their tracks from the barren earth. It picked up Lemon’s abandoned cloak, vomit stains and all, sent it tumbling. Away from the place where the girl had crouched a moment before, knife in hand.

Carving two words into the sun-parched earth.

A message for the friends she hoped were following.

An arrow pointing west.

A warning.

New Bethlehem.

2.4 Proposition

“What the hell happened here?”

In the ruins of a forgotten city, a would-be boy knelt on the broken earth. The corpse beside him was fly-blown, bloated beneath a furious sun. It was dressed in a bloodstained jersey, an old-style knight’s helmet stitched on its back. Loaded pistols were still holstered at the body’s waist, untouched.

“Never even got a chance to draw,” Ezekiel muttered.

The lifelike turned the body over. A dark stain marked the man’s swollen cheek, spreading across his face. Searching the ground around him, Zeke found a dead bee a few meters from the corpse, bar-coded yellow and black.

I’m on the right trail.

But none of this made any sense.

Ezekiel had been trailing Lemon and her captor through the gullies for hours. He’d salvaged a bunch of weaponry from the grav-tank munitions locker, stashed it all in a satchel that bounced on his back as he ran. The gully floor was mostly stone, and the tracks of the BioMaas agent’s transport were almost impossible to spot. But whatever Lemon and her captor were traveling in, there was no way it was big or heavy enough to be hauling Cricket, too. And yet, when Ezekiel had arrived back at the stranded grav-tank, both Lemon and the logika were missing.

So where the hell did Cricket get to?

Truth told, despite the animosity between him and the big bot, he was worried about the pair of them. But Cricket was a seven-meter-tall armor-plated killing machine, and Lemon was a lone fifteen-year-old girl. A girl he’d made a promise to never bail on, only a few hours ago.

He glanced down at the scavver’s corpse again. Wondered what kind of person would’ve done that to a human. What they might have done to Lemon. He could only guess at their motivations for snatching her, but there was at least one certainty in all this mess:

If BioMaas wanted her dead, she’d already be dead.

So Ezekiel pushed the fear aside and ran on.

He cleared the broken maze after a few hours, emerging out of the long shadows and into an endless stretch of salt flats. Like the rest of him, his senses were better than human—he could count the beats of an insect’s wings, shoot a bullet from the air. But truth was, he hadn’t been built for this. He’d served with the Gnosis security forces inside Babel Tower, a place of luxury and impossible wealth. Of soft skin and gentle curves and lips that tasted sweeter than anything he’d ever known.

Ana.

She was alive. Myriad had confirmed it. She’d been critically injured in the assassination attempt on her father, yes, but she’d survived. She was hidden somewhere—some secret Gnosis holding or base out in this wasteland.

But where?

He’d searched for years after the revolt, looking for any sign. They said you never love anyone quite the way you love your First. But Ana had been his Only. The only thing that had kept him going. The only memory that had kept him sane. The thought of seeing her face again, of feeling her pressed against him…

And then he’d found her.

Or what he thought was her.

Eve had looked like Ana.

Felt and sounded and tasted like Ana.

Did I love her like Ana?

The girl he’d known in the impossible tower of Babel. The girl who saved him from the corroding scrap pile of Dregs. The pair of them, side by side in his mind, both now beyond his reach. Both had shown him what it was to feel alive. Both had taught him what it was to care for something more than himself. To strive to be more than just an imitation, a simulacrum, a parody of what it meant to be…

…to be human.

He shook his head, willed the image of their faces away.

You promised Lemon you wouldn’t leave her.

He nodded to himself, jaw clenched. As much as Ana meant to him…

You promised.

But the ground was bare rock, the wind scouring it like a blast furnace. He’d been walking for two hours now without a trace of his quarry—not a mark, not a scratch. He came to a stop, eyes to the setting sun. Nothing out here. Nothing heals. Nothing grows. Just endless kilometers of dust and blinding white and rusted ruins. The bones of a carcass long picked clean.

They’d had it all.

Humans.

And look what they did with it.

Ezekiel knelt, running his fingertips over bare and burning stone. Looking around him, he guessed the BioMaas operative had come this way for a reason; they were counting on being followed. He realized he’d been an idiot to even try to trail them on foot with nothing but keen eyes to track them. BioMaas wouldn’t send amateurs out looking for the weapon that’d end their cold war with Daedalus once and for all. They’d send their best.

Ezekiel stood slowly, turned his eyes back to the northeast.

They’d send their best.

Just like Daedalus did…

He took a long sip of water from his canteen, ran his hand through his mop of sweat-damp hair. Weighing the thoughts in his head, trimming the impossibilities, the shots in the dark, until he was left with only one. It would mean abandoning the trail for now, that Lemon would be at the mercy of her captors. It would mean leaving any hope of finding Ana or reuniting with Eve behind. It would mean a dance with the devil. But out here alone, blundering in the dust? No clues, no path, no way forward?

What other option do you have?

Just a few hundred meters from where Ezekiel stood, two words sat baking in the sun-parched earth. Two words that might have changed everything—avoided all the misery and pain and death that was to come. Just a few more steps forward, and he might have spotted them.

The message for the friends she’d hoped were following.

The arrow pointing west.

The warning.

New Bethlehem.

But with a sigh, Ezekiel turned and ran back toward Babel.

Preacher had been hurt worse. But only just.

It’d happened back in the CorpState Wars, when he was just a regular grunt, still ninety-seven percent meat. Fighting for Daedalus as the company claimed its place among the three most powerful corporations in the whole Yousay. To this day, he still didn’t know what hit him. He’d been pinned down by enemy machina when the explosion went off. He dimly remembered pieces of himself not being attached to himself anymore. Red on his hands. Screaming for his momma. Then he woke up in a Daedalus medcenter. Metal where the missing pieces of him should’ve been.

The Lord had saved his life that day. But it was Daedalus who plucked him from that carnage and made him better. Faster. Stronger. In return, they bought themselves a soldier who knew what it was to look dying in the eye. A soldier more machine than man. A soldier loyal to the death.

Which looked like it might be about now, come to think of it.

Preacher was crawling. He didn’t have much else to do, talking true. After that blitzhund blew his legs away, he’d been laid flat, knocked cold. He’d woken up on that broken stretch of highway outside Babel hours later, surrounded by a dozen broken machina. It looked like lil’ Evie Carpenter had worked her magic again—every one of those bots was fried to a crisp, and almost every cybernetic component in Preacher’s body had been cooked. His right arm was a lump of dead titanium with a red glove stuck on the end of it. His right eye was blind. His combat augs, his reflex stims, his comms, all dead.

He’d not had a chance to give his position when he called for evac, and lil’ Miss Carpenter appeared to have fried his retrieval beacon along with everything else. Which meant Daedalus probably didn’t know where he was.

Which meant he was probably gonna die out here.

But still, he crawled. Back across the Glass. Dragging himself with his one meat arm across shards of irradiated silicon, the mangled scrap metal that had been his legs trailing behind him. Hoping to find one of those wrecked Armada trucks, maybe. One with a working radio, maybe.

Wasn’t like him to just lie down and die.

But after a whole day and night of this crap, it surely was tempting.

The bounty hunter stopped crawling, rolled onto his back. His mouth was ash dry, coated with dust. He pulled off his black, beaten cowboy hat, held it up against the merciless sun.

“And God said, let there be light,” he muttered. “And I ain’t complainin’, Lord. I could just use a little less of it right now, is all. Maybe some kinda miracle if you’re in a giving mood? A little one’ll do just fine.”

And, as if on cue, Preacher heard footsteps.

Slow and steady, crunching on the black glass toward him. He thought he recognized the tempo, but without his augs, he couldn’t be sure. Lifting his head with a wince, he focused on the approaching figure with his one working eye.

“Well, well,” Preacher chuckled, leaning back on the glass. “Snowflake.”

The boy stopped a good forty meters away, leveled a pistol at his head.

Smart.

“I’m wondering if that skull of yours is bulletproof,” the boy called.

“Matter of fact, it is,” Preacher replied.

“You move sudden, we find out for certain.”

The boy advanced slowly, gun aimed steady. He looked like hell—bloodstained and filthy, a bulky satchel on his back. But last Preacher had seen the boy, that right arm of his ended at the bicep, outfitted with a prosthetic that predated the war. Now his arm extended below his elbow, and the bounty hunter could see five small nubs sprouting at the end of the stump.

“Well, you surely are a special one, ain’tcha?”

“Considering you survived a point-blank blitzhund explosion and a shotgun blast to the chest, I’m guessing I’m not the only one,” the boy replied.

Preacher reached into his shredded coat, stuffed a wad of synth tobacco in his cheek. “What’re you doin’ out here, Snowflake? Shouldn’t you be with your girl?”

“Well, one of them told me to go to hell, and I lost the other one. Along with my logika and my tank and what little remained of my good mood.”

Preacher nodded. “That does sound a goodly dose of misfortune.”

“Not really. In fact, this is my lucky day.”

“How you figure?”

The boy knelt beside Preacher’s head, barrel aimed right between his eyes.

“Because you own a blitzhund. And you find things for a living.”

He held up a grav-tank pilot’s helmet, smudged with spots of dried blood.

“And now, you’re gonna help me find her.”

Preacher looked down the barrel into all that black. He wasn’t anything close to afraid—he’d spat right in death’s eye before, after all, and he knew the reward waiting for him in the hereafter. But talking true, he was having an awfully tough time keeping the smile off his face.

He’d always been a man of the Goodbook. Always believed he was part of the Lord’s plan. He’d asked for a miracle, and as always, the Lord had delivered. He just didn’t think the heavenly father would send him a miracle quite so goddamn stupid.

Preacher sucked his cheek, leaned up on his elbows and spat into the dirt.

“Mmf,” he grunted. “All right, Snowflake. I s’pose I am.”

2.5 Helotry

“Haaaa, toldja!” someone crowed. “What’d I tell ya?”

“Shuddup, Murph.”

“You shuddup, Mikey!”

“Ow, don’t touch me, dammit!”

As his optics came into focus, Cricket tried to sit up and found that he couldn’t. He was lying on his back, staring up at the rusting roof of a warehouse or garage. Data was pouring in: damage reports, combat efficiencies, percentage of munitions depleted, recharge rate. It took him a moment to remember who he was.

Where was a completely different matter.

He recalled the fight with Ezekiel. The sudden warning from his internal systems, the loss of power. After that…nothing.

“Hey!” Cricket felt a clunk on the side of his head. “You hear me?”

“YES,” the logika replied. “I HEAR YOU. BUT I CAN’T MOVE.”

A grubby face leaned into Cricket’s field of view. It was a man, freckled skin, a pair of cracked spectacles perched on a flat nose. He wore a threadbare beanie on his head, stitched with a knight’s helm logo.

“WHO ARE YOU?” the big bot asked.

The man’s grin was the color of dirt.

“I’m the guy you’re gonna make rich.”

Cricket felt hands inside his chest.

“NO, WAIT A—”

“See, there it is,” crowed a now-familiar voice. “Said so, didn’t I?”

Cricket’s optics whirred and glowed, the room about him snapped into focus. He was somewhere different—underground, he realized. A large metal hatch was sealed over his head. The walls were concrete, lined with the shells of logika and machina, all in various states of disrepair. Tools, a loading crane, acetylene tanks…a workshop of some kind?

He could hear the dim rumble of machinery, the distant hubbub of human voices, running motors, foot traffic. His atmosphere sensors detected ethyl-4 and methane and lots of carbon monoxide.

A city?

Three figures stood in front of him. The first was Murph, the dustneck scavver who woke him up, then pulled his plug. Beside him stood a shorter, dirtier version of Murph that Cricket guessed was Mikey. He looked similar enough that he might be Murph’s brother. Or cousin. Maybe both.

Beside them, sizing Cricket up through a pair of whirring tech-goggles, was a boy, maybe nineteen years old. He wore big steel-capped boots and dirty coveralls, dark hair slicked back from his forehead. A laden tool belt was wrapped around his waist, his hands smudged with grease.

“WHERE AM I?” Cricket asked. “WHERE’S LEMON? WHER—”

“Hey, shuddup!” Murph hollered, kicking Cricket’s foot. “You only speak when you’re spoken to, acknowledge!”

The big bot fixed the little man in his glowing blue stare. He realized these dustnecks must have salvaged him from where he’d collapsed. Somehow hauled him to this new city while he was powered down. He had no idea where he could be, how long he’d been offline. But these scavvers might’ve hurt Lemon or Ezekiel in the process of jacking him. His friends might be in danger. Cricket’s titanic fists curled at the thought, a thrill of robotic rage coursing through him. Murph’s eyes widened and he took one step back.

But despite the anger, the thought of what might have happened or be happening to Lemon because these dustnecks stole him, Cricket was still a logika. The Three Laws were hard-coded into his head. Including good old number two.

A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

And so…

“ACKNOWLEDGED,” he finally growled.

The boy in the coveralls stepped closer, seemingly unafraid of the tremor in Crick’s voice. He peered up to the big bot’s glowing eyes, his goggles whirring and shifting focus as he took the logika’s measure.

“How much you want for it?” he murmured, turning to the scavvers.

The thieves whispered between themselves, quickly fell to cussing and shoving. Murph finally punched Mikey’s arm and hissed for silence.

“Three thousand liters,” he declared.

The boy tilted his head. “You know Mother will never agree to that, Murphy. Those combat drones you brought us last month all blew their gyroscopes after a few days. She doesn’t have much faith in your wares.”

“Yeah, but look!” Murph kicked Cricket’s foot again. “Hasn’t hardly got a scratch on it! I’ve never seen a model like this! It’s got some hard bark on it, Abe!”

“Reckon we could go down to two and a half,” Mikey muttered.

“Shuddup, Mike, I’m doing the negotiatin’ here.”

“You shuddup!” Mike said, punching Murph in the arm.

The pair fell to fighting, slapping and shoving and cursing. Murph grabbed Mike in a headlock, Mike started punching his brother/cousin’s kidneys, the scavvers falling in a tangle on the concrete as the boy folded his arms and sighed. The brawl went on for a good minute until a soft voice cut the air.

“Gentlemen. Need I remind you this is a house of God?”

Silence hit the room like a sledgehammer. Cricket saw a new figure had entered through a pair of double doors, flanked by a dozen men.

A woman in a white robe. She had pale skin, long dark hair, washed and combed. She was thin, gaunt almost, and about the cleanest human being Cricket had ever locked optics on. But her face was painted with a greasepaint skull, dark hollows daubed at her cheeks and around her eyes. Cricket realized the white robe she wore was actually a cassock, and that an ornate metal X hung around her neck.

That’s the symbol of the Brotherhood….

“S-Sister D-Dee,” Mike stuttered, eyes wide with fear.

“Apologies, ma’am,” Murphy said, picking himself up and standing like a child about to be scolded. “We d-didn’t mean nuthin’ by it.”

The figures flanking Sister Dee fanned out around the room—all of them big, hulking men armed with automatic shooters. Each was dressed in a black Kevlar cassock, greasepaint Xs on their faces.

More Brotherhood…

Cricket looked around the room, his processors in overdrive.

Where on earth am I?

The woman slowly entered the workshop, more gliding than walking. She made no sound, and seemed to bring a stillness with her as she came. Murph and Mike shrank down on themselves, even the coolant fans overhead seemed to hush. Her long hair rippled as she moved, her dark, burning eyes focused on Cricket. Her fingernails were black. Her voice was soft and melodious.

“More flotsam from the wastes, Abraham?” she asked.

The boy turned to Mike and Murphy. “Give us a minute, boys?”

“Sure, sure, Abe,” Murph nodded, utterly cowed. “Long as you like!”

The boy and the woman stepped over to a quiet corner of the workshop while Murph and Mike held on to their crotches. The Brotherhood bullyboys just watched on silently. The boy and woman spoke in low voices, but Cricket’s audio was sharp enough that he could scope every word.

“These vultures again?” the woman sighed. “I do wish you’d spend your time more productively than trifling with heathen trashmen, Abraham.”

“I’m sorry, Mother,” the boy whispered. “But I recognize this logika from the old WarDome feeds I watched when I was small. It’s the Quixote. Built by GnosisLabs. Twelve thousand horsepower.”

The woman raised one painted eyebrow. “Are you certain?”

“The GL logo is right there on its chest,” the boy nodded. “Murphy has no idea what he’s scavved.”

“How much do they want for it?”

“Three thousand.”

“I should have them crucified.”

“This logika is tier one, Mother,” Abraham said. “It’s good enough to fight in Megopolis. And more, it’s good enough to win.”

Sister Dee turned back to Cricket with narrowed eyes. He could feel her stare somewhere in his core code, a soft warning buzzing in back of his head. The boy stood behind her, silent in his mother’s shadow.

“I have a proposition for you, Mister Murphy,” Sister Dee called.

“Yes, ma’am?” the scavver replied.

“We have WarDome here tonight. The Edge have sent up the Thunderstorm to do battle in New Bethlehem arena. We were planning on fighting the Paragon”—she waved at another logika powered down in the corner—“but I suggest you put your money where your mouth is, and pit your bot against the Edge’s champion. If it’s victorious, we’ll buy it. Two thousand liters.”

Murph and Mike whispered among themselves, clearly in opposition. Their voices got louder, Mike punched Murph’s arm, and hostilities looked set to break out again, when Sister Dee cleared her throat. The scavvers fell still, eyes on the floor.

“Deal,” Murph finally said.

The man shuffled over, spat in his greasy palm. Sister Dee simply stared. Meeting the woman’s dark eyes, Murph wiped the spit off on his shirt, then offered his hand again.

“The bargain struck,” Sister Dee replied, shaking it.

Cricket wanted to protest. Demand these people let him go. He wanted to know where he was, what they’d done with Lemon, if his friends were okay. The questions bubbled up inside him with nowhere to go. He’d been commanded to be silent until someone addressed him, and these folks were acting like he wasn’t in the room, let alone speaking to him.

A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings.

A robot must obey.

Abraham looked up at Cricket and smiled.

“All right. Let’s get you ready.”

2.6 Disciples

Lemon smelled the city long before she saw it.

New Bethlehem’s stink reminded her a little of Los Diablos—methane and ethyl-4, garbage and salt. Riding down a broken highway, sick and sweaty, she could see the settlement smudged on the horizon. A grubby little stain on the wasteland, wreathed in fumes and corroding away beneath a cigarette sky.

And beyond it?

Black ocean, far as the eye could see.

It’d taken another day to reach the outskirts, and Lemon was feeling a lot like yesterday’s breakfast. Her fever was worse and her lips were parched—drinking Hunter’s water just made her puke. They’d avoided other travelers on their trek, rested in the shade of a shattered freeway overpass during the day’s hottest spell. She supposed the BioMaas agent was keeping up the brutal pace in case they were being pursued, but Lemon wondered if the woman ever actually slept.

The area around New Bethlehem was a factoryfarm, planted with tall, dirt-colored stalks of what might’ve been corn. The land was irrigated by rusty pipeline, tended by a small army of humanoid logika. They were repurposed military models, by the look, now harvesting grain instead of enemy soldiers. The whole setup was guarded by a whole mess of thugs with a bigger mess of guns.

“I’ve never seen so much food in my life,” Lemon breathed. “They could feed everyone forever.”

“No,” Hunter replied. “They plant customized BioMaas crops. Parasite and fungus resistant. Able to grow in acrid soil. But seeds are sterile.”

Lemon glanced at the agent sidelong. “So every year, these folks have to buy new seed from you?”

Hunter shrugged. “Daedalus controls electricity. BioMaas controls food. Their army is larger. But without us, country starves. This is balance.”

“But if you BioMaas folks get an edge over the Daedalus army…”

“There will be better balance. Better world.”

“That BioMaas controls, right?”

Hunter fixed Lemon in her golden stare, but made no reply. The agent climbed off Mai’a’s back and helped the girl down. Hunter then pressed her hand to the horsething’s brow. It shivered once, trotted off the way they’d come.

“Don’t we need her to ride?” Lemon asked.

“Oldflesh fears what it does not understand. Better we not draw attentions.”

Hunter pulled on a pair of goggles, tied her hairspines in a ponytail, pulled her cloak low over her head. Arm around Lemon, they trudged through the swaying farmland, into the valley that cradled the settlement of New Bethlehem. As they walked, they passed uprooted power lines, rusted autowrecks, faded billboards painted with what might’ve been verses from the Goodbook.

Lemon was starting to get a baaaad feeling.

New Bethlehem was a walled settlement, right on the coast. Its main gate was broad, iron-shod, a crush of people waiting to get inside. The walls themselves were made of rusting plate steel and concrete rubble crowned with razor wire—the folks who ran this joint apparently had zero sense of humor when it came to protecting what was theirs. As they approached the gate, Lemon could see faded GnosisLabs logos on the concrete. But her belly ran cold as she saw the symbols had been painted over with the letter X, ten meters high, black as midnight.

“Oh, butter me all the way backward,” she whispered.

Above the broad gateway hung a welded sign, embossed with five words:

“This town…”

Lemon licked at dry lips, realization sinking into her bones. The billboards. The scripture quotes. That familiar ornate X.

The kind of X they nailed you to if they didn’t like you…

“This town is run by the Brotherhood,” she hissed, turning on Hunter with eyebrows raised. “Didn’t you know that?”

“We told Lemonfresh. We have not been to this deadplace in years. We knew only that Gnosis once owned it, that it was wealthy. What is Brotherhood?”

Lemon glanced at the crowd around them, keeping her voice low.

“They’re a cult,” she said. “Every color of bad news. They claim to get their instructions from the Goodbook, but basically ignore all the ‘be nice to each other’ stuff and just preach on the evils of being different from them. They say biomodification and cybernetics are an abomination, and they’ve got a major hate-chub for ‘genetic deviation.’ ”

“Deviation?”

“Yeah,” Lemon nodded. “Abnorms. Deviates. People like me.”

“There are none like Lemonfresh.”

Lemon shook her head. “There’s plenty. Thing is, doesn’t matter if you’re born with something as harmless as a birthmark or as fizzy as the power to kill ’lectrics with your mind. Brotherhood see you as inhuman anyway. And when they catch you, they throw a nice little party with a big wooden X, a hammer and four roofing nails.”

Lem had spent the last three years hiding what she was for that exact reason. For someone like her, getting fingered as a deviate in a place as remote as Dregs would’ve been a death sentence. And now she’d marched right up to the front door of a Brotherhood stronghold?

I must be sicker than I thought.

As if to remind her, her stomach cramped and she bent double, wincing in pain. None of the folk around her paid any mind, the mob pushing her ever closer to the entrance. Talking true, Lemon didn’t know if they’d find the medicine she needed inside the settlement, but the sickness was getting worse, the ache grinding deeper. This was getting genuinely scary now. And so, she turned her bleary eyes to the gate, trying to gauge if they had any chance of getting inside this joint at all.

The entry was overseen by two Brotherhood members. They wore their order’s traditional red cassocks despite the sun’s scorch, packed the kind of firepower that’d knock a WarDome bot on its hind parts. There was also a big, potbellied machina nearby—Sumo-class, if Lem wasn’t mistaken. Scripture was sprayed on the machina’s hull, and a banner with that ornate black X flew on its back.

But looking closer, Lemon realized the actual work of letting people through the gates was being done by folk who weren’t Brotherhood at all. They had cropped hair, big Xs daubed on their faces with grease, chin to forehead. But they didn’t wear cassocks. Lemon figured maybe they were lesser members? Doing the scuz jobs that full-fledged Brotherhood beatboys didn’t dirty their hands with?

A siren wailed from the walls, drowning out Lemon’s thoughts. A lookout stood in a crow’s nest above the gate, pointing away down the road.

“Brother Dubya’s back!”

“Make way!” a Brotherhood thug bellowed. “Make way for the Horsemen!”

Lemon heard engines in the distance, the blare of a horn, the sound of gunshots. Squinting down the road, she saw a line of rusty red autos motoring toward the gate, spewing methane smoke. The men crewing the convoy were all wearing red cassocks, a few hanging out their windows and firing rifles into the air.

The vehicles slowed as they drew closer, the crowd parting to let them rumble up to the main gates. The lead car was an old muscle truck, fitted with tractor tires and monster suspension. Scripture was painted on its panelwork, and choir music was spilling from its tune spinners. On the doors and hood was the same ornate black X that marked the settlement walls, overlaid with a grinning white skull. The crude, homemade license plate read WAR.

The door cracked open, and a man jumped down to the asphalt. He was one of the biggest units Lemon had ever seen—bearded and mohawked, broad as a house. He was dressed in a white cassock, filthy and spattered with what might’ve been bloodstains. A white skull was painted over his face, chin to forehead, and a well-chewed cigar stub hung from his lips.

“Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war!” he roared.

His posse fired a few more shots into the air, some of the rowdier thugs on the walls joining in. One of the Brotherhood boys at the gates raised his voice over the clamor. “You get ’em, Dub? How many you brought us?”

The big man gave a beartooth grin, like a corner huckster about to reveal the secret of his trick. He reached into his cassock, then whipped out his hand, holding two fingers in the air. The thugs and Brethren whooped and hollered in delight.

“Finally!” one shouted.

A gaunt man with the same greasepaint skull as the big man leaned out the window of the monster truck and roared, “Get those crosses ready, boys!”

“You heard Brother Pez!” More shouts and hollers echoed among the Brotherhood boys as Brother Dubya raised his hands and grinned. “Get ’em up!”

As he began making his way through the crowd, Lemon looked this Brother Dubya over. The big man was well fed, his gunslinger belt loaded with tech, ammo, a fat pistol. The crowd treated him like a celebrity, but he looked at them like they were something he’d found on the bottom of his snakeskin boots. The mob jostled and surged to get a better looksee, and Lemon found herself pushed forward, until she bumped right into the big man’s belly.

Heart hammering, she blinked up into that greasepaint skull. The black eyes burning behind it. Wondering just how many abnorms this fellow had put to the nail.

Can he see?

Can he tell just by looking at me?

“Best watch where you’re stepping, lil’ sister,” the man growled.

“I’m sorry, Brother,” she said, smoothing down his cassock. “I’m jus—”

Brother Dubya put a hand on her forehead and shoved her out of the way. Hunter stepped smoothly between them, bristling with threat. But with contempt in his gap-toothed smile, the man simply puffed on his cigar and pushed on through the mob. The convoy trundled into the settlement, Brother Pez behind the lead truck’s wheel, Brother Dubya leading it through the gates to what sounded like more raucous praise inside.

The noise slowly died down, and with the excitement apparently over, the thugs manning the gate got back to work. Lemon wiped the greasy handprint off her forehead, shuffled along in line. Watching the junior thugs on the door, the way they spoke, the way they rolled. As far as Lem could tell, who exactly they let in and turned out seemed to depend entirely on their mood.

“Okay, I don’t mean to tell you your biz,” she muttered to Hunter, “given you’re running this kidnapping and all. But we step out of line here, we’re not getting through that gate. So maybe let me talk and keep the deathbees in your bra?”

The woman glanced at the guards. Nodded slow.

“Lemonfresh speaks wisdom.”

“…You know, I don’t think anyone’s ever accused me of that before.”

The sun was kissing the horizon by the time they reached the entrance. The sky was soaked the color of flame, fires were lit inside forty-four-gallon drums. The sign above the gate flickered into bright, neon life. As Lemon and Hunter reached the entrance, a young, weary thug looked her up and down.

“Ho there, lil’ girlie.”

“Brother,” Lemon nodded, mustering her least irradiated smile.

“Ain’t no Brother.” He pointed to the greasepaint X covering his face. “Just a Disciple. You here for WarDome tonight?”

“…Yep, that’s us.” Lemon smiled, smooth as an oil slick. “Me and cuz love us a good bot fight.”

Mister Greasepaint looked Hunter over—the cloak, the goggles, the stance.

“She’s your cousin?” he asked.

“Twice removed,” Lemon replied.

The thug sighed. “You know the rules of New Bethlehem, little girlie?”

“It’d be real fizzy if you stopped calling me ‘girlie,’ sir,” Lemon said.

The Disciple blinked. “Well, you’re a whole mess of mouth, ain’t you?”

Lemon glanced down meaningfully, slowly turned over her hand so the man could see what she held. In her palm sat a shiny credstik.

“In a hurry is what we are, sir.”

It was a gamble, offering a bribe to a religious sort. Could be he was the kind who’d take offense. But holy man or no, Lemon had never met a doorthug who wasn’t on some kind of take, and she guessed standing out here in the burn all day wasn’t the most well-paying gig.

Trying to appear casual, the Disciple checked over his shoulder to see if any of his colleagues were watching. Satisfied, he quickly pocketed the stik, tipped an imaginary hat and stepped right the hells aside.

“Welcome to New Bethlehem, sisters.”

Lemon winked, shuffling through the crush with Hunter in tow. A broad square waited beyond the gate, ringed with stalls and old tires and pubs and all manner of people. Once safely through, the BioMaas agent touched Lemon on the arm.

“How much did she pay?” she whispered.

The girl shrugged. “Wasn’t my credstik. Lifted it off that Brother Dubya fellow when I bumped into him. Looked like he had scratch to spare.”

“…She stole his money?”

“Borrowed. So to speak.”

“Resourceful. Fearless.” Hunter smiled. “Her name will be a song in CityHive.”

“Not if we don’t find some meds in here.” She winced, holding her gut. “Feels like I swallowed barbed wire and washed it down with battery acid.”

“Come, then. We hunt.”

Lemon could feel starving eyes on her as they limped through the square. She wasn’t carrying much worth stealing, but she was certain the two other credstiks she’d lifted from Brother Dubya were worth a little murder, and her bod would sell to any number of buyers, kicking or otherwise. There were dustnecks in Los Diablos who’d kill you for a can of Neo-Meat™, and New Bethlehem looked meaner still.

A heavy stink hung over the place like fog, and Lemon soon saw the source, parked on the edge of the bay. Frontways, it looked like an oldskool cathedral, with double iron doors and a big stone bell tower. But springing up out of its hind parts were the chimneys and fat storage tanks of a bloated factory. Black smoke spilled from its stacks, burbling and hissing spilled from its guts. The same words that marked the gates were painted above its doors.

“It’s a desalination plant,” Lemon realized, looking around her. “That’s what they do here. Suck up the ocean, get it fresh to wet down those crops.”

“Come,” Hunter said, apparently not giving a damn. “We waste time.”

They pushed on through the crowd, down a dusty thoroughfare. The walls were plastered with WARDOME TONIGHT! posters, and murals of a handsome middle-aged man. He had flaming eyes and white robes, a halo of light around his head. Beneath every mural were the words SAINT MICHAEL WATCHES OVER US.

Dark was falling, and strips of old neon flickered and spat like a faulty rainbow along the way. Finally, between rows of shattered buildings and the local WarDome, they found an open-air tangle of tinshack shops and seatainers that must’ve been the New Bethlehem market. Crowded with old logika and people, the square was lit by blue methane fires, and stank worse than a busted belly. Hawkers and hucksters mixed with roughnecks and chemkids, Brotherhood bullyboys wandered through the lot, choir music from the PA system washed over the scene.

“Deadworld,” Hunter muttered, shaking her head.

Lemon stood on tiptoes. She could hear some kind of ruckus ahead, but she was still about half a person shy of being able to scope anything over the crush.

“Can you see a sign advertising meds anywhere?”

Hunter nodded. “There. Across the square.”

With Hunter right on her tail, Lemon pushed her way through the mob. Not for the first time, she thought about trying to slip free of the BioMaas agent, make a break for freedom. But talking true, Hunter was the only person in this whole city who sorta had her back, so cutting her loose didn’t seem the most sensible of plays. Besides, she was in no shape to run.

She swallowed hard.

If I don’t get these meds soon, I’ll be in no shape to do anything.

In the center of the market, Lemon found the source of all the shouting. A dozen bullyboys were standing in front of a flashy stage, welded together out of old RVs. Vehicles from the newly arrived Brotherhood convoy were parked around it, their headlights on high beam. Banners daubed with the Brotherhood X billowed in the wind. Lemon saw the convoy riders gathered halfway up the stage’s steps, Brother Dubya at the top, that white skull on his face, a fresh cigar between his teeth.

Two men stood beside him. The first was the fellow who’d been driving the lead truck in the convoy, tall and thin as old bones—Brother Pez, if memory served. The other man was broader, almost plump. Both had the same skulls on their faces as Brother Dubya, both wore white cassocks like him. The plump man yelled into a bullhorn, smoky voice crackling with feedback.

“Citizens of New Bethlehem! I know y’all are impatient for WarDome to get under way!” The man paused as the crowd roared in response, urging them to settle with a wave of his hand. “But before the Dome opens its gates, we got a special treat for y’all. Raise your hands, won’t ya…for our own beloved Sister Dee!”

The crowd roared, and a woman stepped up onto the stage. She was dressed in the cleanest, whitest frock Lemon had ever seen, and looked straight out of an old Holywood flick: tall, dark hair, true lush. But her face was painted with that same grinning skull as the three men, her eyes a piercing black.

“Sister Dee!” the crowd called.

“Sister Dee!”

“Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?” she cried.

Like someone had flicked a switch, the crowd fell silent. The choir music hushed. All eyes fell on the woman, her presence magnetic, the night around her growing darker. She prowled up and down the stage like a predator on the hunt, that greasepaint skull aglow in the light of the headlamps.

“And who shall stand in his holy place?” she demanded of the crowd. “They who have clean hands and pure hearts! For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness! And blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God!”

“Amen!” the Brotherhood boys around her bellowed.

“Amen!” cried the crowd.

“When my father started this church years ago, we never dreamed we would be so blessed,” the woman declared. “And yet, by ever standing vigilant against the marriage of metal and flesh, against the corruption and impurity infecting our very genes, we have earned these blessings! These times are sent to test us, oh my children.” The woman pointed to a banner behind her—a painting of the same gray-haired man that adorned the walls. “But with Saint Michael to watch over us, New Bethlehem will endure!”

“Saint Michael watch over us!” the crowd called.

The woman waved to the Brothers on the steps.

“Brother War and our Horsemen have returned from their righteous hunt upon the trashbreed maggots who’ve beset our convoys these many months!” Lemon saw Brother Dubya give a low bow as the mob howled. “And the Lord hath been merciful in his bounty, and brought our enemies low. Brothers! Bring forward the deviates, that they may partake in their divine purification!”

The crowd bellowed as the convoy riders popped the trunk of Brother Dubya’s auto. Lemon’s belly turned as she saw two figures hauled out into the light. Both had been beaten to within an inch of breathing, neither much older than she was. The first was a girl, short dark hair, long bangs, black smudged paintstick on her lips and a slice of Asiabloc in her ancestry. The second was a boy, tall and broad, his skin darker than Hunter’s. His hair was buzzed short, a radiation symbol shaved into the fuzz on the side of his head.

The girl was out cold, face swollen, blood leaking from a fresh bullet hole in her chest. The boy was conscious enough to struggle, not strong enough to break free. He spat bloody, fixed Brother Dubya in a dark, furious stare.

“I’ma kill you, you rat sonofa—”

Brother Dubya gave him a pop to the chops. The boy sagged, the crowd cheered. Sister Dee held out her hand, and a juve younger than Lemon slapped a hammer into it. The woman raised the tool into the air, looked into the mob.

“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!” she yelled, her eyes alight. “And only the pure shall prosper!”

“Only the pure shall prosper!” they answered.

The boy was dragged forward as the crowd bellowed, still struggling, only half conscious. In the middle of the stage, the Brotherhood had constructed a couple of large Xs from old telephone poles. Brother Dubya slammed the boy against one, held him in place as Sister Dee reached inside her pristine cassock like a showman, and produced the first of four long, rusted nails.

Lemon had seen this party before on the streets of Los Diablos, at least a dozen times. She knew exactly how it ended. Thing of it was, and as bad as she felt about it, there was nothing she could do. The radsickness already had her shuffling toward death’s door, and causing a ruckus here was only going to get her closer. These Brotherhood boys were pure beef, with not even a rusty cyberarm or cheap optical implant among them—Lemon’s gift wouldn’t help her at all. And even if there was some way to use it to even the odds, that’d only mark her as a deviate, fit for another set of nails.

This crowd would rip her to pieces.

She recognized the familiar burn of helplessness inside her chest. An old, unwelcome houseguest. But she didn’t know these kids. Didn’t owe them dust. Just because she was a deviate, too, didn’t mean they were crew. For all she knew, these two had just been born with an extra couple of fingers.

The dark-skinned boy met her stare. Bruised eyes, locking on hers through the crowd. She heard Hunter whisper something, couldn’t quite hear it over the pulse in her ears. But even with that boy looking right at her—his stare not pleading, but full of the same fury she felt inside her chest—Lemon turned away.

She heard the first hammer blow. She heard the crowd roar. She didn’t hear the boy scream, and she felt strangely proud of that. But she knew his courage wouldn’t help him. That nothing could help him now.

And so, she pushed through the crowd. She had her own troubles. High enough to pile to the sky. Adding someone else’s wasn’t gonna help anyone.

Rule Number Eight in the Scrap.

The dead don’t fight another day.

2.7 Solomon

“GOOD EEEEEEVENING, HUMAN FRIENDS!”

The shop was lit by flickering neon, red and purple and blue. The sign above the door read NEW BETHLEHEM PHARMACY AND GENERAL STORE. Walking inside with Hunter close behind, Lemon saw the space was huge, the shelves were crammed with gear, neatly cataloged and labeled. Filthy as New Bethlehem was, she noticed there was no dust on the stock or dirt on the floors. A small portrait of Saint Michael graced the wall. A sign over the counter informed Lemon:

A buzzer had announced their arrival, and before the door was even shut, a tall logika had risen up from behind an antique cash register. Its hull was painted creamy white, trimmed in golden filigree. Its eyes were round and cheery, and when it spoke, an LED in its mouth flashed, lighting up its smile with every word.

“MY NAME IS SOLOMON, FRIENDS,” it said in a proper fancy accent. “AND WHO MIGHT I HAVE THE PLEASURE OF MEETING THIS FINE EVE?”

“Lemon Fresh,” the girl mumbled, feeling altogether wrecked.

“WELCOME TO OUR HUMBLE EMPORIUM, MISS FRESH! HOW MAY I HELP? NEW CLOTHES? FIREARMS, PERHAPS? I’VE THE FINEST IN ALL NEW BETHLEHEM, FIFTY PERCENT OFF AMMUNITION WITH ANY PURCHASE. YOUR SATISFACTION IS, AS THE SIGN SAYS, GUARANTEED.”

Hunter stared at the logika in disgust, lips pressed tight together. Lemon shuffled to the counter, wiped the sweat off her brow.

“We need meds,” she said. “Something for radsickness. You got any?”

“OH MY GOODNESS, ARE YOU ILL?” the logika smiled.

“I’ve had better days.” Lemon winced, pressing at her stomach.

“OH MY, THAT’S JUST TERRIBLE!”

No matter what it said or how it said it, the logika’s face wasn’t animatronic, which meant its expression never changed. The bot just kept on grinning, as if it were telling you that you’d just won the lottery, or that there was a mix-up at the medstation when you were born and you were actually CorpState royalty.

“Um, thanks,” Lemon said. “So about that medicine. You got any?”

“OH, GOODNESS, YES!” The bot waved at some small plastic bottles on the shelf behind it. “THREE PER DAY TO RELIEVE SYMPTOMS, BEST WITH MEALS, YOUR SATISFACTION IS, AS THE SIGN SAYS, GUARANTEED.”

“Fizzyfizzyfizzy.” Lemon sighed with relief, fully prepared to jump over the counter and kiss the bot right on his creeper grin. “Can I have some, please?”

“OH, GOODNESS, NO!”

“…Why not?”

“WELL, FROM THE LOOK OF YOU, MY DEAR, YOU DON’T HAVE TWO BOB TO RUB TOGETHER, IF YOU’LL PARDON THE EXPRESSION. AND I’M HARDLY RUNNING A CHARITY.”

Lemon reached into her undies, pulled out the second credstik she’d stolen from Brother Dubya. “It’s a good thing I’m not asking for charity, then, Sparky.”

The logika swiped the stik off the countertop, ran it through a reader beside the register. The tally flashed, and the bot leaned in for a closer look.

“MY GOODNESS, THAT’S QUITE A SUM. ENOUGH TO BUY OUT MY ENTIRE STOCK.”

“I’ll take it,” Lemon declared. “And some clean socks, while we’re on it.”

“OH, I’M AFRAID NOT,” Solomon smiled.

“You just said I had enough creds to buy your entire stock! How much do you charge for socks?”

“ALL OUR APPAREL IS REASONABLY PRICED, I ASSURE YOU, MADAM. BUT ACCORDING TO THE SERIAL NUMBER, THIS CREDSTIK WAS ISSUED BY SISTER DEE ON HER PERSONAL ACCOUNT. IT HAS OBVIOUSLY BEEN…HOW TO PUT IT GENTLY…” The bot tilted its head. “MISPLACED BY ITS ORIGINAL OWNER? HMM? AND I COULDN’T POSSIBLY ACCEPT STOLEN CREDITS AS PAYMENT. I’M A ROBOT OF SCRUPLES, MISS FRESH.”

The bot handed back her stik, kept right on smiling.

“Waitaminute…” Lemon blinked. “You are a robot. And the First Law says you’re not allowed to hurt humans, yeah? Doesn’t that mean you have to give me the meds? I’m gonna die without them, right?”

“OH, ALMOST CERTAINLY, FROM THE LOOK OF YOU. BUT I’M AFRAID THAT GIVING YOU THE MEDICINE WOULD RESULT IN A FAR MORE SERIOUS INFRACTION OF THE FIRST LAW.”

“…How’s that?”

“WELL, THIS SHOP IS A BUSTLING HUB OF COMMERCE HERE IN NEW BETHLEHEM, YOU SEE. THE CUSTOMER’S SATISFACTION IS, AS THE SIGN SAYS, GUARANTEED, AND AS SUCH, FOLK COME FROM ALL OVER, KNOWING THEY’LL GET A FAIR PRICE AND PAY A FAIR PRICE IN RETURN. BUT IF I WERE TO JUST START GIVING THINGS AWAY, WELL, THE SYSTEM WOULD COLLAPSE, WOULDN’T IT? AND WITHOUT THIS STORE, MY TRADERS WOULD BE OUT OF A LIVELIHOOD, AND NEW BETHLEHEM CITIZENS DEPRIVED OF WHAT THEY NEED TO SURVIVE.”

“Okay,” Lemon frowned. “But without the meds, I’m still gonna die.”

“QUITE THE CONUNDRUM, YES?”

“So shouldn’t your logic centers be short-circuiting or something right now?”

“NO, I’M GOOD WITH IT.”

Hunter slammed her fist down on the counter. “Lemonfresh requires the medicine, fleshless one. Give it over or—”

“I SHOULD STOP YOU RIGHT THERE, MADAM,” Solomon said, raising one hand. “BEFORE YOU FINISH YOUR NO-DOUBT-ELOQUENT ATTEMPT AT INTIMIDATION, I MUST WARN YOU THAT THE THERMOGRAPHIC CAPABILITIES IN MY OPTICS HAVE ENABLED ME TO SURMISE THAT YOU ARE NOT, IN THE STRICTEST SENSE, HUMAN. AND THEREFORE BLOWING A HOLE THROUGH YOUR PELVIS WITH THE GAUSS CANNON CURRENTLY POINTED AT YOU UNDER THE COUNTER WOULD BE ABSOLUTELY NO IMPEDIMENT FOR ME WHATSOEVER.”

The logika tilted his head and smiled.

“YOU WERE SAYING?”

“I need those meds,” Lemon pleaded.

“AND IF I MAY SPEAK FRANKLY, MY DEAR, YOU ALSO NEED A SHOWER AND CHANGE OF CLOTHES. BUT I’M AFRAID I DON’T SEE ANY OF THAT IN YOUR IMMEDIATE FUTURE.” The logika smiled. “THOUGH FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH, I AM TERRIBLY SORRY ABOUT YOUR IMPENDING IRRADIATED DEMISE. I’M TOLD IT’S QUITE UNPLEASANT.”

“Well, is there anything else—”

“THANK YOU, COME AGAIN!”

“But I—”

“THAAAAAAANK YOU, COME AGAIN!”

Lemon looked Solomon up and down. She’d met its kind a thousand times before, though admittedly, never in bot form. Kicking up a fuss now was only going to spell more trouble, and trouble in New Bethlehem meant Brotherhood. And so, despite the growing worry she might actually end up dying in this rat-hole town, she pulled on her braveface. Her streetface. Gave the logika a small nod.

“Thanks for your time, Sparky.”

Lemon limped out the door, the buzzer chirping as she stepped into the street. Down the end of the block, she could see the crowd had cleared out from the Brotherhood’s stage and filed into the WarDome—she could hear the familiar sound of distant roars, the drumming of impatient feet. Around the stage, a dozen Disciples were silhouetted against drums of burning trash, and beyond them, Lemon could see those big wooden Xs where two luckless figures hung.

There’s worse ways to go than radsickness, I guess.

Hunter stood behind her, lips pursed in thought. “Perhaps there are other traders who have the same chemicals. We should keep hunting.”

Lemon shook her head. “Market’s closing. Looks like everyone’s heading to watch the Domefight. And at least we know the meds we need are in this one.”

Hunter scowled, pulled aside her cloak. Lemon spotted a pistol at her belt, similar to the rifle she’d left with Mai’a—pale and spiny, as if crafted out of old fishbones. A handful of bumblebees were crawling through Hunter’s hair, up her throat, clearly sharing their mistress’s agitation.

“Our stings will not work against a fleshless one. Our weapons, either.”

“I’m not suggesting we get murderous,” Lemon said.

“What does she suggest?”

“You notice anything special about the lock on Solomon’s front door?”

Hunter frowned, clearly puzzled. And despite the growing pain in her belly, her creeping fear, Lemon managed to muster a smile.

“It’s electronic,” she said.

It almost felt like the old days.

She’d run solo most of her childhood in LD, but every now and then, someone would rustle a big-time scam and need to crew up. She’d stolen a whole crate of Neo-Meat™ with a few kids from Engine Road once. And there was that time she and the Akuma twins ripped that WarDome bookie and ate like queens for a month. Of all the Rules in the Scrap, Number Five had always been her favorite:

Takers keepers.

She and Hunter found an old salvage place a little down the way from Solomon’s. They sat in the shadows under its awning to wait, and Lemon tried not to think about those deviate kids at the other end of the square, or what the radiation might be doing to her body as the minutes ticked by. The BioMaas agent offered her another algae bar, but her belly was feeling a lot worse. Instead, she wet her cracking lips with their water flask and watched as Solomon’s “boutique” closed up for the night with all the shops around it.

As a street thief in Los Diablos, Lemon’s first lessons had been in patience. Looking for the right moment to strike, slit the pocket, snatch the scratch. She’d learned the hard way about the value of waiting, and Hunter seemed to have learned the lesson, too. Together, they sat and watched the patrols wander by, talking through Lemon’s plan in hushed voices as battle raged inside the WarDome. She thought of Evie, of their time together fighting Miss Combobulation in Dregs. Wondering where her bestest was as her heart ached beneath her ribs.

The Disciples wandered in packs of four, rolling through the market at regular intervals. Within an hour, Lemon knew their patterns, knew the gaps, knew the moment. And finally, she nodded to Hunter, and it was on.

They stole over to the front of Solomon’s, the BioMaas operative moving quick and graceful, Lemon limping from the hurt in her gut. The store’s neon was switched off, the windows blocked by rusted shutters. Hunter kept watch while Lemon pressed against the front door. It was solid steel, hung with a sign depicting Solomon’s infuriating grin and a speech bubble now declaring APOLOGIES, WE’RE CLOSED! Beneath the notice pulsed the red LEDs of a twelve-digit control pad.

Lemon pressed her palm to the lock, felt for the power inside her. She’d never been very good at little things—using her gift with finesse was way harder than just letting it loose to fry everything around her. Closing her eyes, she reached for the storm of gray static, trying to make it small as possible.

With a loud bang, the neon above the store burst, every light around her fizzled and the PA speakers shorted out entirely. Before anyone came for a looksee, Lemon pushed the front door open and slipped inside, Hunter close behind.

Squinting around the gloom, Lemon felt an old familiar thrill prickling on her skin. The fear of getting caught, the buzz of doing wrong. It wasn’t that she was a bad person. But she’d been found in a laundry detergent box outside an ethyl joint as a baby. Named for the logo on the side of it by the drunks who discovered her. The only thing her parents had left her was the little silver five-leafed clover she wore around her neck—it wasn’t like she’d had many wonderful role models up till now.

Besides, being bad sometimes had a funny way of feeling really good.

Hunter waited by the door as Lemon crept along the shelves, moving by feel through the gloom. The register was still functional, so it looked like she’d managed to stop her gift damaging anything too far inside the store. Peering over the countertop, the girl saw the meds she needed, grinned up at the sign above her head.

“Damn right…,” she whispered.

“GOOD EEEEEEVENING, HUMAN FRIEND!”

Lemon near jumped out of her skin, tumbling back on her hind parts as Solomon rose up from behind the counter. The gloom was illuminated by the bot’s smile, pulsing in time with every word he spoke.

“OH, NO, PLEASE DON’T GET UP.” The bot’s optics were fixed on Lemon as it hauled a bulky rifle from behind the counter and aimed it at Hunter. “I’M NOT CERTAIN HOW YOU DID IT, BUT I’M RATHER MIFFED YOU BROKE MY DOOR, AND SHOOTING YOUR INHUMAN FRIEND HERE MIGHT TAKE THE EDGE OFF. SO, IF EVERYONE COULD JUST HOLD STILL, I’LL CALL THE CONSTABULARY AND THEY’LL TAKE CARE OF YOU BOTH, YES?”

Solomon reached for an old battered CB radio with his free hand.

“You’re calling the Brotherhood on us?” Lemon asked.

“I’M SORRY, DIDN’T I MAKE THAT CLEAR?”

“But they’ll kill me, won’t they? Isn’t that a breach of the First Law?”

“WELL, HERE’S THE THING, MY STICKY-FINGERED FRIEND. I’VE MADE IT MY BUSINESS TO REMAIN UNAWARE OF THE PUNISHMENTS INFLICTED FOR THEFT IN NEW BETHLEHEM FOR THAT VERY REASON. IT COULD BE THAT THEY GIVE YOU A PAT ON THE BACKSIDE AND SEND YOU ON YOUR MERRY WAY.” Solomon tilted his head. “THOUGH I DOUBT IT.”

“Isn’t that a little against the spirit of the Law?” Lemon asked.

“NO, I’M GOOD WITH—”

The logika bucked, his whole body going rigid. He made a funny little noise in his voxbox, his optics glowing white before popping inside his metal skull. Sparks burst from the LED display at his chest, the radio in his hand, from his maddening grin. And with a small electronic whimper, Solomon crashed face-first into the antique register, then collapsed to the floor in a smoking heap.

Lemon lowered her hand and rolled to her feet, pulled herself over the counter. By the fizzing light of Solomon’s remains, she popped the top off a bottle of radmeds and scoffed three pills, swallowing her salvation with a grimace. Pulse racing, she stuffed her cargo pockets with the rest of the meds and anything else worth stealing. Finally, she knelt beside the fried logika, glanced one last time at the sign above the counter.

“You know, you’re right,” she said. “That was completely satisfying.”

Hunter had the exit open a crack, letting roars from the distant WarDome drift in from the night outside, along with the occasional deathbee. The insects crawled over the agent’s cheeks, along her fluttering eyelashes, and Lemon had to suppress a shiver as she rejoined her by the door.

“The way is clear,” she whispered.

“You sure?”

Hunter nodded. “A Hunter sees with many eyes, Lemonfresh.”

“Right,” the girl replied. “Out into the street, walk it like we own it, head straight for the gate. If a patrol stops us, keep your deathbees calm, let me talk. Fizzy?”

Hunter nodded and the pair slipped out from the store, closing the door behind them. The market was almost completely deserted, the population of New Bethlehem all turned out for the Dome. A few gutter runners standing around a burning drum gave them a curious look as they passed. A Disciple patrol was gathered under the PA speaker, pondering why it had shorted out.

Lemon’s heart was thumping in her chest, her skin tingling at the feeling of a grift done right. Maybe she was imagining it, maybe it was just the relief, but those meds were making her feel better already. The night was bright and her pockets were full and she was starting to think they were free and clear.

Until they passed by the Brotherhood’s stage at the other end of the square again.

She tried not to look. Tried not to notice the two figures nailed up on those Xs. The way the Brotherhood had patched up the bullet wound in the girl’s chest so she wouldn’t bleed out before she’d suffered. The way a dozen Brotherhood thugs were slouching on the steps in front of those hanging bodies, laughing and jawing as if nothing were amiss. As if they’d not nailed up two kids to suffocate under their own weight beneath tomorrow’s sun.

The dead don’t fight another day, she reminded herself.

Just because they’re like you, doesn’t make them crew.

She missed Evie, she realized.

She missed Ezekiel and Cricket and the feeling she was wrapped up in a story much bigger than herself. It was easier back then, just being the sidekick. Dragged along for the ride, expected to contribute nothing more than the occasional quip and maybe a shoulder to cry on.

Her shoulders weren’t strong enough for anything else, after all.

She wasn’t big enough to do this on her own.

Was she?

“Stop,” she whispered.

Hunter reached inside her cloak, instantly alert, scanning the night around them for danger. “Trouble?”

“Not yet,” she sighed.

Lemon looked to the stage behind them, those kids strung up to die.

“But I think I’m about to make some.”

2.8 Paladin

Be careful what you wish for.

Cricket knew this song like he knew his own name. The stamping feet and rising cheers. The hiss of pistons and the percussion of metal bodies colliding. Bright lights and ultra-violence, the crowd safe behind concrete barriers and rusting iron bars, secure in the knowledge that the things fighting and bleeding out and dying on the killing floor couldn’t feel a thing.

WarDome.

The big bot waited in a work pit below the Dome floor, watching the boy named Abraham seal up his chest cavity and bolt it closed. The dustneck brothers Murph and Mike stood on the sidelines, offering suggestions and being politely ignored. Abraham was obviously something of an expert on bot tech—he’d replaced Cricket’s faulty powercells without much fuss, given how big they were. The big bot could feel new current rolling through his limbs, power crackling at his fingertips. Internal readouts showed he was almost back at full capacity, and ready to roll.

“How do you feel?” the boy asked in his soft voice.

Cricket simply stared, blue eyes aglow.

“It’s all right, you can speak,” Abraham said. “What’re your power levels at?”

“NINETY-TWO PERCENT,” Cricket replied.

“That’ll be plenty,” the boy nodded. “Your opponent in tonight’s match is called the Thunderstorm. It’s the champion WarBot from a settlement down south called the Edge. It’s only nine thousand horsepower, but it fights dirty. We’re running live ballistics, so—”

“I DON’T WANT TO GO UP THERE,” Cricket said.

Abraham pulled his tech-goggs up onto his forehead and blinked, as if Cricket had just told him the sky was green or up was actually down. For the first time, Cricket saw the boy’s eyes were a brilliant pale blue.

“Where’d you two say you found this thing again?” he asked.

“Out west,” Mikey replied. “In the Clefts.”

“You brought us a Domefighter that doesn’t want to fight Dome?”

Cricket used to joke about it. Between the feeds Evie had obsessively watched and Miss Combobulation’s brawls in the Los Diablos WarDome, he’d seen logika fight hundreds of times before. And he’d cheered along as Evie won, learned the Dome’s tricks backward, joked that one day he’d grow up to be a Domefighter, too. But he’d just been a helperbot back then. Forty centimeters high. Handing Evie tools when she needed them and offering advice when he could. He said he wanted to fight on the killing floor, but really, all he ever wanted was to be taken seriously.

To be treated with respect.

To be big.

When Silas had installed his persona in the Quixote’s body, it’d been like a dream come true. And he’d used his new power as best he could to defend Evie, throwing all he could into the brawl at Babel for the sake of the girl who’d been his mistress. But that’d been life and death. That’d been for love. He never thought for a second that one day he might have to actually fight for amusement.

“DON’T MAKE ME GO UP THERE,” Cricket pleaded.

Stomping over to the big logika, Murphy kicked his foot.

“Hey, listen here!” he yelled. “I order you to fight in this Dome match, you hear me? When that countdown finishes, you’ll fight until your opponent’s out of commission or you are, acknowledge!”

Cricket looked down into Murphy’s eyes.

Up to the Dome floor above his head.

Be careful what you wish for.

“ACKNOWLEDGED,” he replied.

“See?” Murph grinned at Abraham. “Toldja. Pure quality, this one. Fistful of hardcore, true cert. You’ll see.”

Abraham looked at Cricket again, his pale blue eyes narrowed.

“I suppose we will,” he murmured.

The boy lowered his mechanical gantry, stepped down onto the work pit floor. With the flick of a switch, the metal braces holding Cricket’s arms and legs in place were released, allowing him free movement.

Except I’m not free at all, am I?

He’d never been in this position before. He’d always been beholden to humans, sure. And Evie had sometimes told him to be quiet when he’d wanted to speak his mind. But she’d never forced him to do something he’d hate.

He realized how lucky he’d been, serving people who cared about what he thought. How he felt.

And now?

“Juves and juvettes!” came a cry through the PA above his head. “Disciples and believers, get yourself situated! Tonight’s main bout is about to begin!”

Cricket fixed the boy in his glowing stare. “PLEASE, I DON’T WANT TO—”

“Shuddup!” Murph hollered, kicking him so hard he hurt his foot. “Dammit…you speak when you’re spoken to! Now, you get up there and you fight!”

“…ACKNOWLEDGED,” Cricket said.

“You’ll do fine,” Abraham promised quietly. “You’re built for this.”

“In the blue zone!” came the cry above. “From parts unknown, weighing in at seventy-one tons, get yourselves rowdy for tonight’s challenger!”

Cricket felt the platform beneath him shudder, the broad hatchway above his head grinding open. The crowd’s howls washed over him, gaining in volume as the platform slowly brought him up to the killing floor. Floodlights arced over the Dome, the flash compensation in his optics kicking in as he scoped his situation.

It was a long way from good, true cert.

The arena was a few hundred meters wide, scattered with the broken bodies of bots who’d been destroyed in earlier matches. Barricades of concrete and steel littered the ground. A concrete wall ten meters high encircled the arena, and outside that, concentric rings of bleachers rose like the tiers of an oldskool amphitheater.

As Cricket watched, a dome of rusted iron bars rolled up from the floor and enclosed the space. A bright neon sign above his head began flashing:

A motley crowd of scavvers, scenekillers and wageslaves gathered in the bleachers and pressed up against the bars. Their volume was thunderous, washing over Cricket in waves.

“Aaaaand now, in the red zone! All the way from the Edge…” The EmCee’s voice was swamped under a long chorus of boos. “…Weighing in at seventy-seven tons, winner of sixteen hardcore bouts, make some ruckus for…the Thunderstooooorm!”

A blast of oldskool rawk music spilled over the PA as Cricket’s opponent rose into view, bathed in a flood of red light. The logika was squat and quadrupedal, heavily armored. Twin gauss cannons were mounted on its shoulder brackets, its fists crackling with live current. It was painted black, a lightning bolt sprayed in gold on its greaves and chest, its optics glowing bright green.

“HI,” Cricket waved. “I DON’T SUPPOSE YOU JUST WANNA BE FRIENDS?”

“TARGET ACQUIRED,” the Storm called in a booming voice, turning on Cricket. “MISSION: DESTROY.”

“OKAY, THEN,” Cricket nodded. “GOOD TALK.”

The enemy bot stepped off its platform and spread its arms wide, launching off a burst of fireworks from the missile pods on its back. The New Bethlehem crowd obviously weren’t fans of the visiting logika, booing louder as the rockets exploded into showers of red and white.

“Sixty seconds until official betting closes, believers! We remind you tonight’s bout is sponsored by Daedalus Technologies, and brought to you through the generosity of our beloved Sister Dee and her Horsemen! Can I get an aaaaamen?”

Cricket’s optics roamed the crowd as they stamped and roared. He saw Sister Dee sitting in a ringside box, raising her hand in acknowledgment. The woman was still dressed all in white, the skull on her face freshly painted, a plastic red flower in her hair. Beside her sat three men, one tall and fierce, one stick-thin, the last almost pudgy. Each wore the same skullpaint on their faces, the same white cassocks.

The Brotherhood must run this whole damn town….

Cricket saw Abraham standing dutifully beside his mother. He looked small compared to the Horsemen, totally out of place. He saw him speak to Sister Dee, the woman smiling and squeezing his hand as she replied.

The crowd quieted down, and Cricket turned his attention to his opponent, his circuits awash with electric trepidation. It wasn’t like he could be afraid technically. But the Third Law still compelled him to protect his own existence. Problem was, Cricket knew he couldn’t fight his way out of a wet paper bag.

Silas had never felt the need to program Cricket with combat techniques—he’d been less than half a meter tall for most of his life. In his new body, he could brawl, he was strong, and that’d been enough to see him go toe-to-toe with Faith in Babel. But against a logika that was programmed to mince other bots for a living?

“I HAVE A BAD FEELING ABOUT THIS,” he muttered.

“Ten seconds to full hostile!” cried the EmCee.

Cricket searched the crowd, looking for a friendly face and finding only bright eyes and bared teeth. A countdown appeared in the neon above his head and the mob joined in, stamping their feet in time as Cricket called out to the Thunderstorm.

“Five!”

“HEY, LISTEN—”

“Four!”

“I’M THINKING—”

“Three!”

“WE COULD GO SOMEWHERE QUIETER—”

“Two!”

“AND MAYBE JUST—”

“One!”

“TALK ABOUT THIS?”

“WAR!”

The Thunderstorm raised its cannons and unloaded at Cricket’s chest. The big bot yelped and threw himself behind one of the steel barricades as the shots whizzed overhead. The crowd roared, the Storm followed up with a burst of missiles from the pods on its back. Cricket rolled aside as the shots spiraled through the air toward him, trailing plumes of rainbow-colored smoke. The ground around him exploded, shrapnel ripping tiny gouges in his plate armor, the flashes making him flinch. That kind of detonation would have torn him to pieces when he was little, and his self-preservation subroutines were in full overdrive.

“First strike to the Storm!” the EmCee cried.

Cricket hunched behind a metal barricade, panic flooding his systems.

He wanted to run.

He wanted to cower.

He was never the bravest bot in the Scrap.

But he’d been ordered to fight, and the Second Law countermanded any desire for self-preservation. And so, instead of running away, he was forced to charge. Across the killing floor, feet pounding the steel. As he drew closer, some hidden instinct clicked into place, and he felt the combat software inside his WarBot body engage. A small 360-degree map of the WarDome appeared in his head, tracking his opponent’s movements, speed, ammo count, damage reports, and screaming warning about incoming fire.

The enemy logika let loose with another blast from its cannons, Cricket twisting past the first as the second spanggged off his armored shoulder. He didn’t feel pain, but his damage reports started flashing brighter. He had no weapons, no real advantage. His only plan was wrapping his hands around the Storm and tearing pieces away till there was nothing left to rip off.

“Look at it go, folks!”

The crowd gasped as Cricket wove among the barricades, rolling over a destroyed logika hull and tumbling past a barrage of exploding missiles. He was big, but thanks to his tracking software, he was surprisingly agile. His engines thundered, the twelve thousand horsepower in his limbs rushing like a waterfall. The crowd roared as he drew close, only to howl in disappointment as the Storm fired a jet burst from each foot and sailed into the air. Articulated toes curled around the WarDome’s bars above and it seized hold, hanging upside down over the killing floor like a limpet.

“UM,” Cricket called. “THAT’S NOT ENTIRELY FAIR, IS IT?”

“TARGET ACQUIRED. MISSION: DESTROY.”

“YEAH, YOU SAID THAT ALREADY.”

The Thunderstorm unleashed another missile barrage. Cricket raised one arm to shield his optics, shells bursting on his armor, the explosions catching him across the back and ripping up his hydraulics. An internal alarm sounded, his body feeding him more damage reports, a TARGET LOCKED message flashing in his displays. Threat washed over his circuitry, the Third Law screaming in his mind. Memories of the fights he’d watched with Evie flickered in his head, the pair sitting in her room, Lemon beside them, watching legends of the Dome throw down before the wondering crowd. But that was then. This was now.

He was alone, afraid.

But beneath and between and beyond that, the big bot was surprised to realize…

He was angry.

Angry at being taken away from his friends. Angry about what had happened to Evie. Angry that these humans had stolen him, put their hands in him, thrown him in here to fight for their enjoyment. He might have been made to serve, but he hadn’t been made to serve them, and the injustice of it all boiled over his circuitry, washing his vision with red. Some electronic instinct, some urging in the software of his new body, made him reach out toward the Thunderstorm. And as the crowd gasped in wonder, Cricket’s right hand folded up inside his forearm, and a heavy chaingun unfolded in its place, firing a hail of bullets right at the enemy bot.

“Looks like our challenger has some surprises up its sleeve, folks!”

The blast was bright, thunderous, shocking even to Cricket. Tracer rounds flew like fireflies, the crowd backing away from the bars even as they roared approval. The unexpected recoil threw off his aim, Cricket staggered backward and almost fell. The wild spray missed the Storm completely, but it did strike the WarDome bars the enemy logika was clinging to. The shots were armor-piercing, explosive-tipped, ten thousand rounds per minute. The steel shredded like wet tissue. And with its footholds blasted away, the Thunderstorm was sent plummeting toward the ground.

“Pro moves from our challenger!”

Cricket had no idea what he was doing, no control over the combat reflexes running through his WarBot body. The crowd bellowed in delight as twin pods of missile launchers unfurled from his back like stubby wings, targeting lasers locking onto his fallen opponent. A salvo of small incendiary missiles burst forth, lighting up the Storm in a halo of bright flames and sending it staggering.

Cricket knew he had to press, charging the fallen bot and kicking it like a football. The Storm went tumbling across the killing floor, flipping over onto its back. It tried to regain its footing, limbs kicking feebly as Cricket fell on top of it and began punching, stomping, tearing, the crowd chanting in time with every blow.

“Kill! Kill! Kill!”

Sparks flew, the Storm’s armor buckling beneath the terrible force of Cricket’s fists. Its fritzing voice box was spitting out a stream of garbled damage reports, its optics flaring bright. With one mighty blow, Cricket smashed the enemy logika’s maintenance hatch wide open, titanium buckling like tinfoil. And with red still washing over his optics, Cricket reached inside, fingers closing around the Thunderstorm’s central processor—the bot’s literal electronic heart.

“P-PLEASE…,” the Storm stammered. “D-DO NOT…”

Some part of him knew he wasn’t really killing it. That the Storm could be rebuilt if its owners cared enough. But Cricket knew he was hurting it. Knew the imperative burning at its core: the Third Law demanding it fight, flail and, finally, even beg to protect its own existence. And in losing, Cricket knew exactly what the logika would be feeling. To fail to uphold the Three Laws was worse than dying.

To fail to uphold the Three Laws was to fail in every sense a robot could.

But still, that filthy dustneck’s command rang in Cricket’s ears. The Second Law burning brighter than anything except the First.

A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

A robot

must

obey.

“PLEASE…,” the Storm begged.

“I’M SORRY,” the big bot replied. “I’M SO SORRY.”

Cricket made a fist, cables spitting, a blinding flash of white. The crowd roared as he tore the Thunderstorm’s heart free in a cascade of sparks. The EmCee was shouting into the PA, the mob was on their feet, the neon gleaming in the coolant and oil pooling like blood at his feet. Cricket looked at the spent shell casings glittering on the charred floor, the broken hulk before him. He looked at the humans around him, the bloodlust in their eyes, listening to the stomping rhythm of their feet.

“Believers!” came the cry.

The crowd hushed, all eyes turning to the box at the ring’s edge. Sister Dee was standing with a microphone at her lips, surrounded by her cassocked thugs. Abraham stood beside her, giving Cricket the thumbs-up. Behind him stood Murph and Mikey, squabbling once more as they began to realize that selling him for a mere two thousand liters might have been a touch conservative.

But it was too late. The bargain was struck.

Cricket belonged to the Brotherhood now.

“The Lord has truly blessed us this day!” the Sister cried. “Not only have the terrorists who plagued our convoys been brought low, but it seems New Bethlehem WarDome has a new champion!”

Sister Dee pointed to Cricket, teeth flashing as she smiled. “I give you…”

Abraham leaned in to whisper in his mother’s ear, and the woman smiled.

“…our Paladin!” she cried.

All he’d ever wanted was to be taken seriously.

To be treated with respect.

To be big.

Cricket looked up at the roaring crowd, hung his head.

“BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR,” he murmured.

2.9 Easy

“No.”

“They’re just kids, Hunter.”

“We must bring Lemonfresh to CityHive. She does not understand her importance. Lemonfresh is—”

“Yeah, yeah. Needed. Special. I got it.”

They were standing in the shadows of a closed street-eatery, scoping the Brotherhood’s awful little stage. Red banners fluttered in a cool night breeze. The dozen Brethren leaning against Brother Dubya’s monster truck didn’t exactly look on high alert, but that was no kind of surprise. This was the heart of a Brotherhood settlement, after all. Everyone in this armpit of a town was either on their side or terrified of them. Probably both.

Lemon could hear roars from the distant WarDome, the crash of metal and bursts of heavy weapons fire. It sounded like total chaos in there, and she was grateful for the diversion. A churn and bubble was coming from the desalination plant, black smoke rumbling into the sky. With all that noise, Lemon knew they’d have the element of surprise—even if it was only her and Hunter against twelve B-boys. But Hunter herself was far from convinced.

“Came here for chemicals,” the operative growled. “Have them. Road awaits.”

Lemon scowled. “Listen, can we agree that, as far as unwilling yet gorgeous captives go, I’ve been an absolute effing delight up to this point? Haven’t tried to escape, or shiv you in the back, or warned these lawmen that ‘oh, hey, by the way, this crazy lady is a genetically engineered murder machine with a swarm of killer bees inside her bra’?”

“We thought we had reached understanding,” Hunter said, a little sadly.

“Look, you wanna tell me I’m special, fine,” Lemon snapped. “I find it literally impossible to disagree with you. But those kids are some kind of special, too, or these Brotherhood bastards wouldn’t have nailed them up in the first place. Maybe they just got two belly buttons, I dunno. But nobody deserves to go out like that. Nobody.”

Hunter peered across the way to the Brotherhood scaffold. Trepidation shining in those strange golden eyes.

“And then we leave for CityHive,” she finally whispered.

“Look at these freckles. Would I lie to you?”

The BioMaas agent folded her arms and scowled.

“What does she propose?”

“Almost everyone in this dump is at WarDome. You set your deathbees on the thugs, I get the kids down, we snaffle one of those autos and fang it. Once we’re out of New Bethlehem, you call Mai’a, we give the kids the wheels, then ride into the sunset. Conscience clear.”

“Bees die when they sting, Lemonfresh. We are not infinite. She asks much.”

“Yeah, well, you’re asking me to be the wind that changes the world or whatever, so I figure this makes us even. It’ll be easy as, trust me.”

“Easy as what?”

Lemon shrugged. “Easy as a very easy thing.”

The operative was silent for long moments, clearly torn.

“I could always just start screaming for help?” Lemon offered. “I am still technically the victim of a kidnapping here.”

“She would threaten me?”

“Technically, what I’m doing is more like extortion.”

Hunter narrowed her eyes, a low angry buzzing filling her chest.

“Very well,” she nodded.

Lemon’s stomach was still achy, but she managed a grin anyway. The pair waited until the closest Disciple patrol had wandered past. And when the coast was nice and clear, Lemon moseyed over to the stage, hands in her stuffed pockets.

The Brotherhood boys fell silent as they noticed the short, scruffy redhead wandering toward them. She guessed these dozen were among the crew that had snaffled those poor kids to begin with. They were packing heavy pistols, automatic rifles. The tallest one had an oversized copy of the Goodbook hanging from a thick iron chain at his belt. Bound in cracked leather, it was big enough to beat a burglar to death with, and embossed with faded gold lettering:

The Lord helps those who help themselves.

The Brethren looked her over, eyebrows raised.

“Evenin’, little sister,” a beardy one said.

Lemon shook her head and smiled. “Oh, I’m not your sister, spunky.”

“All the Lord’s children are our brothers and sisters,” a tall one replied.

“Amen, Brother Ray,” the beardy one murmured.

Beardy McBeardo was tossing a claw hammer between one hand and the other. Lemon realized it was the same one Sister Dee had used on the kids earlier.

“Tell me, Brother Ray,” she said to the tall one. “Do you have to brush your teeth extra hard on account of all the crap that comes out of your mouth?”

The dozen Brethren glanced at each other in disbelief. Brother Ray wandered over, crouched in front of Lemon. The man was big enough that the two of them were still eye to eye. This close, she could see the bloodshot in his stare, the nothing beyond it. His voice was the dangerous kind of quiet.

“You looking to get hurt, little sister?”

“Like you hurt those kids up there?”

Brother Ray glanced at the pair onstage. He drummed his fingers on the massive Goodbook hanging from his belt.

“Only the pure shall prosper,” he shrugged.

Lemon sucked her lip, nodded. She pointed at the beardy Brother’s neck.

“Hey, you got a bee on you.”

The Brother frowned, then flinched, slapping at his throat. “Goddammit!”

“Blasphemy, Brother R—ow, goddammit!”

The Brethren managed a handful more curses before their lungs stopped working. Lemon backed away, turned her head so she wouldn’t have to watch them ghost, covering her ears to block out the sounds they made. She’d grown up rough, true cert, but she’d seen more people get cadaverous in the last week than she’d seen in all the days before put together. It was starting to get heavy.

She wondered what Mister C might’ve said, seeing how she’d ended up so deep so quick. She could remember the old man looking her in the eye as he took her bloody hand in his, squeezed it tight and breathed his dying words.

“Look after our g-girl. She’s going to…n-need you now.”

Yeah. Great big fat job she was doing of that…

Lemon flinched as she felt a soft hand on her shoulder, turned to see Hunter behind her. “Quickly.”

Lemon nodded, pulled up her pants and gritted her teeth. Listening to the distant WarDome roar rising in pitch, she knelt beside Brother Ray, rifled his pockets.

“What’s the word for someone both brilliant and beautiful?” she finally asked, holding up a set of car keys in triumph. “Brilliful? Beautifant?”

“Go!” Hunter hissed, dragging the bodies out of sight.

“Rightright.” Lemon snaffled the fallen claw hammer and dashed up onto the stage to take a closer peek at the captives. Both were wearing some kind of military uniform, cut out of desert camo. Both were also unconscious—the Asiabloc girl from blood loss and shock, the dark-skinned boy from the beating he’d taken and the torture that had come afterward.

Probably for the best.

Lemon set about figuring out how to get the pair free. She’d not eaten anything substantial in days, but she still felt her gorge rising, looking at the hammer in her hands and pondering the best way to drag the nails out of the boy’s feet.

“Um, okay,” she whispered. “I am apparently not equipped to deal with this level of pukable.”

Hunter appeared at her side, golden eyes gleaming with concern.

“What takes so long?”

“I’ve never done this before!” Lemon hissed. “These people have nails in parts of them that should not, strictly speaking, have nails in them!”

Hunter snatched the hammer and set to work, and Lemon decided it’d be best for all concerned if she started the car instead. She ran down to the monster truck, keys in hand, and immediately realized she had two problems: First, a Disciple patrol had rounded the corner at the end of the market and were headed their way. And second, she was too short to reach the truck’s door handle.

“Um,” she said. “Crap?”

Looking around, she spied the bloated Brotherhood corpses. Lemon dashed over, slipped the cutter free from her buckle and sliced Brother Ray’s belt. Picking up his fat, leather-bound copy of the Goodbook, she waddled back to the monster truck. Placing the book on its end, she stood atop it, popped the handle, climbed inside. Using the book’s chain, she hauled it up, and plopped it on the driver’s seat so she’d be tall enough to see over the wheel. She gave the embossed cover a small pat.

“The Lord helps those who help themselves,” she murmured.

The rear passenger door opened, and Hunter dumped the unconscious girl inside, dashed back for the boy. Peering out through the windshield, Lemon saw the Disciples had noticed something wrong and were trotting down the street, speaking into their commsets. Lemon turned the key, rewarded with an earthshaking roar.

“Hunter, move your ass!” she shouted.

The Disciples broke into a run, slinging their rifles off their backs. Lemon saw another patrol dashing toward them from the opposite direction, heard the blare of a steamwhistle from the de-sal plant, followed by a wailing air-raid siren from the city walls. She gunned the engine, feet barely able to reach the pedals.

“HUNTER!”

The door behind her opened, the BioMaas agent leaping inside with the dark-skinned boy in her arms. “Go, Lemonfresh!”

Lemon stomped the gas just as the bullets started flying, spanging off the panelwork and shattering the windshield. The motor bellowed and the truck lunged forward, crushing a row of tinshack market stalls. Lemon winced, tried to find reverse, the gearbox making a sound like a bolt dropped into a meat grinder.

“Can she not drive?” Hunter demanded.

“…Did I not mention that?” Lemon asked.

The BioMaas agent muttered to herself, hauled that strange fishbone pistol out from under her cloak. She fired off a dozen shots out the window, seemingly at random. The bullets were green, luminous, humming like fireflies as they whizzed harmlessly up into the dark.

Lemon gawped over her shoulder. “Can you not shoot?”

“A Hunter never misses our mark,” the woman replied.

“Maybe you better tell your bull…”

Lemon’s voice faded, and she turned back to her window as the humming changed pitch. Mouth dropping open, she watched as the shots curved in midair, swooped off in a multitude of directions like they had minds of their own, striking each of the dozen Disciples running at the truck. The men collapsed, convulsing where they fell. In a handful of heartbeats, every one of them was motionless.

Lemon met the BioMaas operative’s golden stare.

“Okay,” she nodded. “You can shoot.”

“Go!” Hunter roared.

Lemon found reverse, planted her foot, the truck ripping free of the stalls and crashing ass-backward into the stage. The girl bounced back in her seat, cracked her forehead on the steering wheel, slammed on the brake.

“You might wanna fasten your safety belt,” she muttered.

“What is safety belt?”

“Oh, this is going to end well.”

Lemon spun the wheel, stomped the pedal and they were off, tearing away through the market. Even with her butt parked on the Goodbook, she could barely see out of the broken windshield, and the truck crashed through another dozen stalls and rolled straight over a row of parked dirt bikes as it roared out of the square. The air-raid siren was wailing louder, but most of the citizens of New Bethlehem were still at WarDome, and the streets were clear.

The truck was thundering past the de-sal plant when the second round of bullets started flying. Lemon heard lead pattering on the panels like rain, desperately trying to keep four wheels on the ground as she swerved and swayed. The truck plowed through an ethyl joint, flattened a parked RV and screeched around the corner into the main square, rumbling for the gate.

“Um.”

Lemon slammed on the brakes, chewed her lip.

“Okay, good news and bad news.”

“What?”

“Bad news is, the gate’s closed.” She shot Hunter an apologetic glance. “And I sorta lied, there is no good news.”

Hunter peered out of the shattered windshield. Ahead, the heavy double gates of New Bethlehem had been closed and sealed—apparently in response to the sirens they’d set off. They were five meters tall, half a meter thick, iron-reinforced. The agent glanced at Lemon, her face grim.

“Easy as a very easy thing, yes?”

“Look, no one ever let me plan stuff before, I got kept around for my looks!”

Hunter did something to her pistolthing that might’ve been a reload. She loosened the throat of her outfit, and a swarm of furious bumblebees began crawling from the hive that was her skin. With a flick of her left wrist, a long, wicked barb the color of bleached bone emerged from the flesh of her palm.

“Where the hells were you hiding that?” Lemon breathed.

“When gate opens, drive.”

“But wha—”

“Drive.”

Hunter opened the truck door, leapt down onto the broken street and dashed right at the gatehouse. As she ran, she fired another dozen of those firefly rounds into the dark. The glowing green bursts swooped among the Disciples and Brotherhood members who’d responded to the siren, and Hunter’s bees took to the wing. Lemon heard screams over the idling motor, wails and gargled prayers. She ducked low as a hail of bullets struck the truck, but most of the shooters were gunning for the BioMaas agent cutting them to ribbons. The woman tumbled along the ground, dreadlocks whipping like snakes. She twisted to her feet, hurtled over the swelling corpses manning the gatehouse and disappeared inside.

The girl couldn’t see what went on inside the building, couldn’t hear over the siren’s wail. But within a minute, the gate clunked and shook, the bolts sealing it shuddered aside. Heavy chains ran through greasy pulleys, the metal groaned. And with a long, rusty creak, the gates to New Bethlehem opened wide.

“Okay…,” Lemon breathed. “I’m officially impressed.”

She stomped the gas, rubber burning, the truck lunging forward with a roar. Bullets struck the panels, ricocheted off the long rim guards as a few of the smarter Brethren tried to shoot out the tires. But Lemon just grit her teeth and fanged it, hard as she could, the beast thundering toward the open gate.

She glanced up, saw figures on top of the gatehouse, silhouetted against the light of burning forty-four-gallon drums. She saw Hunter’s shadow, weaving and striking with that barb at her wrist. She saw Brethren and blood falling like rain. And as she thundered underneath the gate, she saw Hunter dive, hairspines streaming behind her, landing with a soft whuff in the tray of the truck.

“Go!” the woman cried, thumping her hand on the roof.

Lemon planted both feet on the accelerator as the wheels spun and the engine hollered and dust rose behind them in a rolling cloud. A few shots whizzed past her window as they gunned for the open road, but Hunter seemed to have gutted most of the garrison, the fight bled right out of them.

Hunter climbed in through the open window, slid into the seat beside her, spattered head to foot in blood. Lemon thumped her hands on the steering wheel, grinning wider than that annoying bot in his annoying shop.

“Told you!” she roared over the motor. “Easy as a very easy thing!”

And that’s when she noticed not all the blood belonged to the Brotherhood.

A ragged hole glistened in Hunter’s sternum, the agent’s hand pressed to it in an effort to stanch the red. The woman looked pale, her few remaining bees crawling around the wound, buzzing furiously. Her voice was a pained whisper.

“She c-calls that easy?”

2.10 Rumble

“Just hold on, okay?” Lemon cried.

Heartbeat like thunder in her chest. Stomach hurting again, like it was full of broken glass. Dust stinging her eyes and blinking back the tears. Pushing away the thought that this was all her fault and just trying to keep the truck steady as they roared past the Brotherhood farmland and out onto open highway.

“Hunter, can you hear me?”

The moon was trying to shine through the smog overhead, a cold and ghostly light creeping out over the fields of gene-modded corn. The BioMaas agent leaned back in her seat, her lap slowly filling with red. It was more blood than Lemon had ever seen in her life, the smell flooding the cabin and mixing with the ocean’s stink and making her arms shake. Hunter winced, hand pressed to the bubbling wound. A half dozen fat bumblebees were bashing into the shattered windshield, as if maddened by the agent’s pain.

“Hunter?” Lemon asked.

The woman simply closed her eyes and shook her head.

“Tell me what to do!” Lemon wailed. “Should I stop?”

“Don’t you b-bloody dare,” came a hoarse whisper behind her.

Lemon flinched, the truck hit the gutter, close to spilling. She wrestled for control of the weight, her butt almost sliding off the Goodbook. Pawing her bangs from her eyes, she glanced into the rearview mirror. She saw dark eyes, dark skin, a jaw you could break your knuckles on. Cropped black hair, a radiation warning symbol shaved into the side of his head. Realizing the boy they’d rescued…

“You’re awake,” Lemon breathed.

“Drive,” the boy repeated. “Straight east. Keep th-the ocean on your back.” His voice was deep, his accent trimmed with a heavy slice of proper fancy. “Stomp that pedal like it insulted your mum.”

He turned to the girl lying unconscious beside him, touched her pale face.

“Diesel?” he whispered. “Deez, you hear me?”

“Is she okay?” Lemon asked.

The boy checked the bandage at the girl’s chest, the bullet wound beneath. “Does she look okay?”

Lemon reached into her cargo pockets, started tossing the meds she’d snaffled from Solomon’s joint onto the backseat. “Any of that help?”

“Maybe,” the boy grunted, checking through the boxes and bottles. “You nick this stuff from the Brotherhood?”

“Borrowed. So to speak.”

“So you’d be some kind of undies-on-head crazy, aye?”

“In case you didn’t notice, I just rescued your sorry ass from certain doom. I’m effing brilliful, is what I am.”

The boy raised an eyebrow.

“It’s like a cross between brilliant and beau—”

“Yeah, I get it,” he growled.

Ignoring the bleeding wounds at his own wrists and feet, the boy started stripping the sodden bandages from his friend’s torso. Lemon glanced at Hunter, saw the woman had wadded her cloak over the bullet hole in her sternum. Her face was gleaming with sweat, bloodless.

“You still with me?” Lemon asked.

Hunter simply nodded, golden eyes on the road ahead. She cracked the window, the wind rustling the spines on her scalp. Lifting one red hand, she whispered to three fat bumblebees crawling on her bloody fingers. One by one, the insects took flight, out through the window and into the night. Hunter leaned back in her seat, eyelashes fluttering as her bloody lips moved.

“Just be still, okay? Don’t try to talk.” Lemon twisted in her seat, looked at the boy behind her. “Hey…what’s your name, anyway?”

“Grimm,” the boy scowled, not looking up.

“…Grimm?”

“Is there an echo in here or what?”

“Okay, Grimm, that fits,” Lemon nodded. “I approve.”

“Oh, that’s a relief.”

“You got crew? Where you from? My friend’s shot, she needs to get fit quick.”

“Already said, love,” the boy replied, wrapping clean bandages around the girl’s chest. “Gun it east. That’s where we’ll find help.”

“My name’s not love,” she said. “It’s Lemon Fresh.”

“What kinda name is—”

The rear window exploded, glass showering into the cabin. A split second later, Lemon heard the rifle shot, glanced into the rearview as Grimm dragged his friend to the floor. Through the dark and dust they were kicking up, she saw the headlights of a posse—trucks, 4x4s, motorcycles, by the look—riding up on their tail. The sky overhead was buzzing with a half dozen rotor drones, each packing a small autocannon. Squinting through the gloom, she could just make out big black Xs painted on the autos’ hoods.

“Well, that wasn’t entirely unexpected,” she sighed.

Tearing the wheel right, she drove them off the highway and onto a shattered off-ramp. The driver’s side mirror exploded as a bullet struck it, another shot thunking clean through the tray door and into the radio, popping it like a balloon. Lemon twisted the wheel, sent the truck swerving across the road. Glancing into her rearview, she yelled over the engine’s roar.

“Those bikes are gaining on us, and someone in those trucks can shoot!”

“Probably Brother War,” Grimm spat, squinting out the back window. “He’s the one who plugged Deez. But they’ll want us alive, he’s just playing with us.”

“Playing?” Lemon shouted. “Do not like this game! Do not!”

“If he wanted us ghosted, we’d already be brown bread. Can we go faster?”

“I’m already flooring it!”

Grimm cursed, started hunting around inside the truck. Lifting the backseat, he found a greasy automatic rifle engraved with scripture. Lemon winced, pawing at her stomach. Her nausea had returned, head buzzing, bones aching. Reaching into her cargos, she fished out her bottle of radmeds. She looked to Hunter for help, but saw the woman was out cold in a puddle of her own blood. The truck began weaving and skidding all over the road as Lemon wrestled with the childproof lid.

“I’m trying to aim here!” Grimm roared. “Can you hold it bloody steady?”

“No!” she said, tossing the bottle back to the boy. “Open that for me!”

The boy frowned at the bottle. “You got dosed? Where at? How bad?”

“Long story, just gimme the meds! Three a day and I’ll be fizzy!”

“…You know it don’t work like that, right?”

“What the hells would you know?”

Lemon ducked low as another high-powered rifle shot thunked into the tray. Glancing into her rearview, she saw the Brotherhood’s bikes were right on their tail, the rotor drones overhead, the rest of their posse creeping ever closer. She realized the autos pursuing them were simply faster, that in terms of a chase scene, while their truck might’ve been the biggest, it probably wasn’t the best.

“I feel there’s a valuable life lesson in here somewhere,” she muttered.

The drones swooped in low, ready to start shooting out their tires. A blowout at this speed would spill them for sure. And so, Lemon held up her hand. Lost in the static behind her eyes. Feeling for the sparks of current inside the drones, the electric pulses inside their metal shells. It was tricksy to get a grip, keep her wits on the road. Her head was buzzing, fever burning her out like a candle. But with a grimace, a surge of pain in her belly, the girl closed her fist. The LEDs on the dashboard all popped and fizzled. The headlights died. But like a flock of dead birds, the drones wobbled and crashed to the road one after another.

“How the bloody hell did you do that?” Grimm breathed.

Lemon glanced into the mirror, into his eyes. She saw a slow spark of realization. He glanced at the unconscious girl in the seat beside him, then to the stolen meds scattered across the backseat. Snatching up a small bottle, he ripped the plastic off a disposable hypo. Ducking low as another shot punched through the flatbed, he drew out a long shot of clear liquid into the needle.

“Wassat?”

“Adrenaline,” the boy replied.

“Are you a doctor?”

“Do I look like a bloody doctor?”

Lemon’s jaw dropped as the boy jammed the hypo right into the girl’s jugular. The reaction was immediate, violent, the girl drawing a deep breath, eyes shooting open as she bucked in her seat. She tried to rise, shocked, pale. Focusing on Grimm’s face, gasping as the pain registered in her brain.

“Ohhhhh god…,” she moaned.

“Diesel?” Grimm whispered. “Deez, love, listen, we’re in deep, we need ya.”

The girl blinked rapidly, flinched as another bullet smashed out what was left of the back window. With a groan, she twisted in her seat, squinted through the dark to the posse on their tail. Glancing at Grimm, she coughed, the black paintstick on her lips spattered with red.

“You a-always take me…to the best parties,” she whispered.

“What are mates for, eh?” the boy grinned.

“Who’s…the k-kid?” she asked, glancing at their driver.

“Um, excuse me?” Lemon demanded.

“She’s Robin Hood,” Grimm said. “Trust me.”

Lemon had no idea who or what a Robin Hood was, but her impending high-speed murder just seemed more of an issue right now. The lead truck was close enough that Lemon could see the driver clearly through the gloom. He didn’t look more than twenty, a gas mask over his mouth, his Brotherhood cassock billowing in the wind. A pack of Disciples with bulky shotguns and big greasepaint Xs over their faces were riding in the flatbed, lifting their weapons to take aim at Lemon’s tires.

Diesel took a deep breath, holding out her bloody right hand.

Lemon couldn’t be sure through the dust and dark, the sting of the sweat in her eyes. But as the girl’s fingers curled into claws, the road in front of the Brotherhood truck…ripped. A ragged hole opened up: a shimmering, glowing, nothing-colored tear in the asphalt. The girl held out her left hand, opening up another tear about five meters in the sky above the posse. And as Lemon watched, absolutely gobsmacked, the enemy truck plummeted into the first tear, and fell right out of the other.

The vehicle tumbled from the sky, landing right on top of another truck full of bullyboys. Metal shredded, both trucks crashed and flipped, the night alight as the pair exploded in a ball of orange flame. The other Brotherhood vehicles slewed wildly over the road, motorbikes spilling, riders and gunners eating their fill of asphalt at a hundred kilometers an hour.

Lemon pawed at her eyes, adjusted the mirror.

“What…the…HELLS?”

Diesel ignored her, gritted teeth smeared in red, turning to the next closest truck. Lemon saw Brother Dubya roaring warning, the posse spreading out across the road. Again the girl twisted her right hand, a glowing, colorless tear opening up in the ground in front of a pursuing 4x4 as another opened in the sky.

The 4x4 driver tried to swerve, his front tire clipping the edge of the rift and beginning to fall inside. But at the same moment, Diesel coughed a mouthful of blood, closing her eyes as the tears snapped shut. The 4x4 was sliced clean in two, as if by the sharpest blade, one half sent flipping and spilling across the road, the other half dropping out of the closing tear in the sky. It collided with another motorcycle rider, smudged him across the broken highway in a halo of flame.

The girl gasped, one hand pressed to the bleeding wound in her chest.

“C-can’t…” She shook her head. “Can’t…”

“You done good, Deez,” Grimm declared. “Rest up, I got this.”

Diesel sagged in her seat as the boy unloaded with the assault rifle. A spray of gunfire peppered the truck in response, Lemon shrieked and ducked low. The truck bounced hard as they hit the curb, careening down an embankment and into a stretch of rocky badlands. The Brotherhood were right on their tail.

A Disciple made a desperate leap across the gap between his cycle and the truck. A second Disciple followed, both landing safely on the tray. Grimm took out the first before his rifle ran dry. The second made it to the broken rear window, dove through and made a snatch for Lemon’s throat. His fingers closed about her neck, snapping her choker, her five-leafed clover glittering as it fell. Lemon planted an elbow in his face before Grimm grabbed his neck, Diesel hauled him back. The trio fell to brawling in the backseat, cursing and kicking right behind her head.

Lemon could hardly see for the dirt and grit flying in through the shattered windows. The truck careened sideways as a 4x4 crashed into them, a second truck slamming into their right, trying to drive her into the spurs of jagged badlands stone. Lemon squinted through the dark and dirt, saw Brother Dubya in the passenger seat, features painted with his big greasepaint skull, a smoking cigar at his lips.

The big man looked across at her and winked. And despite the chaos, Lemon took her hand off the wheel long enough to give him a good look at her middle finger.

Grimm was still wrestling in the backseat. Diesel took an elbow to the jaw, collapsed into the footwell, bleeding and gasping. The Disciple climbed atop Grimm’s chest, drawing out a pistol and thumbing off the safety when a long barb of cruel bone punched clean through his neck.

Blood sprayed as Hunter rose up from the passenger seat, her chest and belly dripping. Climbing into the back, the BioMaas agent stabbed again and again and again, finally opening the door and kicking the well-ventilated corpse out of the truck. Grimm looked at her with wide eyes, gasping for breath. Hunter reached into her bloodied cloak with bloodied hands, slipped her goggles down over Lemon’s eyes. Pale as a ghost, spattered in red, and, somehow, smiling.

“Hunter?”

The woman tore the throat of her outfit open, her remaining bees crawling from the honeycomb skin beneath. Rolling down the window, one hand to her bleeding chest, she looked at Lemon in the mirror.

“They will c-come for her,” she whispered, blood on her lips. “Fear n-nothing. A Hunter…n-never misses our mark.”

“Hey, wait…you don’t…”

“Lemonfresh is important,” the woman replied. “She is needed.”

“Hunter, don’t!”

The agent leapt out through the night, into the cabin of the 4x4. Her bees swarmed, the men inside the cabin screaming. Hunter hacked and slashed with her bone barb, the windows painted with dark sluices of blood. The truck veered away, skidded back into the path of another vehicle behind. The autos collided with an almighty crash, the 4x4 tumbling onto its side and bursting into flame.

Dubya’s truck collided with Lemon’s again, the girl shrieking as she fought the wheel. Grimm snatched up the murdered Disciple’s pistol, started blasting out of the side window. Dubya’s truck veered away, then swung back for another thundering collision, driving them toward a spur of desert rock. Lemon screamed, tossed about like a ragdoll. But though she hadn’t necessarily stolen the best truck for a chase scene, she had stolen the biggest. She jammed the wheel back hard, and Dubya’s truck was forced sideways, front tires clipping the spur, tilting up onto two wheels and finally flipping like a top.

Tearing metal. Shattering glass. Lemon wrestled the truck back under control, glanced into the rearview mirror and watched Dubya’s truck tumble end over end before crashing to a halt.

With the loss of their leader and the beating they’d taken, it seemed the fight had been knocked out of their pursuers. The Brotherhood headlights peeled away from their tail one by one. Lemon whooped, blared the horn, thumped her palm against the roof.

“EFFING BRILLIFUL, I’M TELLING YOU!”

Grimm pulled himself upright, looking at her in the rearview mirror.

“Not bad, love,” he gasped. “Not bad at all.”

“True cert, you call me love again, you can get out and walk.”

The boy winced as he sat up taller, pointed ahead. “See the silhouettes of those mountains? Just keep drivin’ toward those.”

“Where we headed?”

“Miss O’s.”

“Miss O?” Lemon blinked. “She like your grandmother or something?”

The boy snorted, his lips twisting in something close to a smile.

“Yeah. Something like that, love.”

2.11 Family

The voice of a dead girl rang inside Eve’s head.

She remembered this place. Remembered the man who’d pretended to be her father standing in here, surrounded by devotees. Sharp suits and bright eyes and promises of a new dawn. None of it felt real. All of it did.

The boardroom was circular, the table too. The walls were glass, looking over the city below, the wasteland beyond, the ruin they’d made. The chairs were identical, all to create the illusion that the great CorpState of GnosisLabs had no ruler. The table’s black glass was filmed with dust. The city was silent. And in the vases around the room’s edge, all the flowers were dead. Just like its king.

Eve stood tall in the middle of the table’s hollow circle, dressed all in white. A real eye had regenerated in the socket she’d ripped her optical implant from. The hole in her skull where she’d torn her Memdrive free had healed closed. Both her irises were hazel now, the blood washed from her blond hair.

“You look just like her,” Uriel said.

The lifelike leaned back in his chair, gesturing vaguely at her fauxhawk.

“Aside from that, of course. But still, it’s quite extraordinary.”

Eve looked at the lifelike sitting there at the boardroom table. Trying to decide how she felt about seeing him again. Her belly was awash with feelings she knew weren’t her own. She remembered Uriel from a youth she’d never lived. Meeting him in the R & D department with his eleven brothers and sisters. Her “father” and his scientists had been so proud of the doom they’d fashioned that day.

“Children,” Monrova had said. “Meet my children.”

Uriel hadn’t changed in their years apart. His hair was still dark, thick, long. His eyes were still the blue of the ocean, before humanity had poisoned it black. His stare still cut through Eve like knives. Like the gunshot that rang out in their tiny cell as he raised his pistol to Tania’s head during those final hours, as Nicholas Monrova’s children rose up to burn down all he’d built.

“I’m not afraid of you,” Tania had declared.

Uriel hadn’t replied.

His pistol had spoken for him.

Eve knew most of those memories didn’t belong to her; Nicholas Monrova wasn’t her father, Tania Monrova wasn’t her sister, the family these lifelikes had destroyed wasn’t her own. And yet, as she looked at Uriel, Gabriel, Faith, it was still a struggle to convince herself she didn’t hate them.

She knew these feelings were the residue of the girl she’d been built to replace. A life that didn’t belong to her, ringing inside her skull. Ana Monrova was a splinter in her mind, now at war with the person she’d become. Because inside, Eve knew these lifelikes weren’t the ones who deserved her hatred. That it was humans who’d foisted this existence on her. Humans who played at being gods. Humans who truly deserved all the hate she had to give.

No, despite the soft voice of protest somewhere in the black behind her eyes, Eve knew the five people in this room weren’t her enemies.

They’re my family.

Uriel sat staring at her, eyes narrowed as if weighing her on some hidden scale. He was dressed in black, dusty from the kilometers and years between them. A dark flavor of pretty, the opposite of Gabriel’s golden-boy facade.

Verity stood behind him, one hand on his shoulder. Her hair was as long and black as his, heavy lids hooding dark brown eyes. Her skin was darker than Eve remembered. But her smile was just as beautiful.

Patience stood by the window, her long brown hair styled upward to reveal a dramatic undercut. The glare from the dawn beyond the glass burned her olive skin to gold. Her hands were clasped behind her back, brown eyes framed by long coal-black lashes were fixed on the wastes. She’d nodded to Faith and Gabriel as she entered, but hadn’t even looked in Eve’s direction.

Of the thirteen lifelikes in the 100-Series, they were the six that remained. Raphael had burned himself alive. Grace had been destroyed in the explosion that had wounded the real Ana and set their maker on his road to ruin. Daniel and Michael had been killed by Myriad during the revolt. Hope had been murdered by the Preacher. Mercy had been burned to death by Silas Carpenter during the brawl in the Myriad chamber. Ezekiel had abandoned them.

Six of them left. And no one like them in all the world.

“Thanks for coming,” Eve said.

“Oh, no, thank you.” Uriel’s eyes roamed from the tip of her toes to the top of her head. “When Gabriel sent us your invitation, I knew I had to see you for myself. Our maker’s last folly. The resurrection of the daughter he loved so dearly.”

“Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” said Patience from the window.

Uriel turned to Gabriel and Faith, seated at the table’s opposite curve. Both had recovered from the clash with Silas and Ezekiel and Cricket in the Myriad chamber. Gabriel still wore his old, blood-spattered clothes. His blond hair was mussed, his look disheveled. Faith sat beside him, looking immaculate, dead flatscreen eyes locked on Uriel.

“Speaking of resurrection, brother, how fares Grace’s?” Uriel asked. “I take it from her absence, your failures continue unabated?”

“What do you care, brother?” Gabriel replied.

“I do not,” the lifelike replied. “Love is a fantasy, used by humans to convince themselves their procreations are something more than banal biomechanics. We are so much more. What need have we of love, brother?”

“And what need have we of repeating this conversation?” Faith sighed. “We’ve had it a dozen times before, remember?”

“I do,” Uriel smiled. “And I am as bored of it, dear sister, as you are. Which is why we left you to this rotting tower and this fool’s dream in the first place.”

“Ah, yes,” Gabriel scoffed. “Abandoning one fool’s dream for another. Tell me, Uriel, how fare your efforts with the Libertas virus? When exactly will you be raising your logika army to wipe humanity from the face of the earth?”

“We have had our successes, dear brother,” Verity replied. “More than you.”

“Just because you can utilize Libertas doesn’t mean you can replicate it,” Gabriel sneered. “The original stockpile of the virus Monrova created is all but gone. And I presume by the lack of a mechanical legion at your back, dear sister, you’ve failed to synthesize more.”

“At least we are walking forward,” Verity snapped. “While you wallow here in your human delusions. Tell me, Gabriel, if you ever do crack Myriad’s defenses and raise Grace from the grave, what then? Move to a lovely little condominium in Megopolis, perhaps? Build yourself two point five children and play the weekly lottery and pretend to be a cockroach like them? Is that your dream?”

“Don’t push me, sister,” Gabriel spat.

“Don’t threaten me, brother,” Verity replied.

Over by the window, Patience shook her head and sighed. “This is pointless.”

The lifelike scowled about the room at her siblings, then marched toward the boardroom door. Eve took a step forward, hand outstretched.

“Patience, stop.”

“You might still suffer under the delusion you’re human, deadgirl,” the lifelike replied, not breaking stride. “But you don’t tell me what to do.”

Eve leapt over the table, stood in front of Patience to block her exit. The lifelike raised her hand, ready to backhand the girl aside. All the strength and speed of her superior bioengineering turned her hand into a blur, whistling as it came, faster than a human eye could track.

And Eve blocked the slap.

Patience’s eyes widened as Eve’s fingers closed around her wrist, her knuckles turning white. The lifelike tried to snatch her hand free, but Eve held on, her grip like iron. Eve pulled her closer, their faces just a few inches apart.

“Get this straight, sister,” Eve said. “I’ve got no delusions about what I am.”

Uriel’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t understand. You were made to blend in with humanity. The Ana we took to that cell was no match for a lifelike. She was weak by design. Just as human and frail as the rest of them.”

“My name isn’t Ana. It’s Eve.”

Patience tried to break free again, and Eve finally released her grip. The lifelike looked down at her wrist, the skin already bruising. The pair locked eyes, a silent battle crackling between them. Patience finally inclined her head.

“Speak your piece, then,” she said. “Sister.”

Eve turned to the room, looking around at her siblings.

“You destroyed this Corporation,” she said. “You destroyed this city. Tens of thousands ghosted. The balance between Gnosis and Daedalus and BioMaas thrown into chaos, the country set to fall into another war. And for what?”

Uriel sighed. “If you’re trying to convince us we overstepped—”

“No,” Eve said, her voice hard as iron. “Nicholas Monrova was a man playing god. We were all born on our knees, one way or another. I’m not saying you went too far, Uriel. I’m saying you didn’t go far enough.”

She pointed to the window.

“Look at the world they created. Humanity is a failed experiment, running face-first toward its own extinction. They’re the past. We’re the future.”

Uriel leaned back in his chair, a small smile on his lips. “We appreciate the lecture, little sister. Truly. And given that you’re but newly awakened to who and what you are, I’m impressed you’ve arrived at these conclusions so quickly. But we drew them ourselves, years ago.”

“And what’ve you done since then?” Eve demanded. “As soon as you ghosted your common enemy, you turned to scrapping on each other like stray dogs. There’s nobody like us in all the world. Don’t you get it? We’re all we’ve got. And we want the same thing. Gabriel wants to create more of us. You three want to produce more of the Libertas virus. And the secret to all that’s right under our feet.”

“Gabriel has been trying to unlock the Myriad supercomputer for years,” Verity sighed, shooting a poison glance at her brother. “And he’s failed.”

“Two of the locks are broken now, thanks to me,” Eve said. “Retinal scan. Voice ident. We’re halfway home.”

“But without Monrova DNA, we cannot break the third lock,” Uriel said. “And our maker and his family are dead.”

“Not all of them,” Eve said. “Myriad told me Ana’s still alive. She was hurt bad in the explosion that ghosted Grace. Monrova put his precious baby girl on life support, created me to replace her.” Eve’s lip curled, her hands clenching to fists at the thought. “But she’s alive. Out there in a Gnosis holding facility somewhere. And nobody knew Monrova better than his precious baby girl.” She tapped her temple. “Nobody knows better than me where he might have hidden her.”

Eve looked at Gabriel. Then to Uriel.

“We find her, you all get what you want. The secret to resurrecting Grace. Raph. All of those we’ve lost. Along with the ability to make more of us. Plus, we get access to Monrova’s files on Libertas. We can replicate the virus—enough to infect every bot in the country. Think of it. An army of lifelikes and logika. Once the servants. Now the masters. Nothing will be able stop us. Nothing.”

Uriel looked about the room. Fingertips steepled under his chin once more.

“And what about you, sister?” he finally asked. “What do you want out of this?”

Eve took a deep breath, pursed her lips.

She’d wondered the very same thing.

She thought about the lies that had led her here. The hubris of creating a life for your own selfish ends. The humans who’d built her. Manipulated her. Never once stopping to ask how she felt, what she thought, what she wanted. The arrogance and greed. The cycle of war. The oceans poisoned black. The flowers all dead.

No.

That’s not it.

The voice inside her head, the echo of the girl she’d been raised to be, was screaming that this was madness, this was hubris, this was wrong wrong wrong. Like a splinter in her mind, digging deeper the more she picked at it. She was frightened of it. Infuriated by it. And she knew of only one way it would end. One way to silence the screams of protest, strangle the emotions that didn’t belong to her, erase the memories of a life that wasn’t hers. To finally, truly become Eve, and rid herself of daddy’s precious baby girl.

“I want to finish what you all started,” she said. “I want to end this once and for all. So once we have Myriad open?”

Eve stared deep into Uriel’s ocean-blue eyes.

“I want Ana Monrova dead.”