DEV1AT3 (Deviate)

2.12 Order

We’re standing in a neat, perfect row.

My brothers, my sisters and me. The twelve of us, different faces, different skin tones, different eyes. But all of us the same.

Alive and breathing.

We’re dressed in white, like the walls around us, the roof above us, the lab coats of the scientists who toast their success with their glasses of sparkling ethanol. A man stands at their head like a king, dark graying hair and a generous smile. Our father. Our maker. Our god.

Nicholas Monrova.

Gabriel stands on my left. The firstborn. The favorite. Faith is to my right, her flat gray eyes wide with wonder. I can feel the ground beneath my feet and the cool press of the air conditioner on my skin. I can hear the hum of the computers, see the thousand different colors in my father’s dark brown eyes, taste iron and perfume and faint motes of dust on my tongue. Everything is so real. So loud. So bright. And I wonder, if this is what it is to be lifelike, what must it be to be truly alive?

“Children,” our father says, “meet my children.”

Our father’s real offspring are ushered into the room. Four girls and a boy. They’re introduced to us by name, one by one. The boy Alex is unafraid, shaking Gabriel’s hand. Tania and Olivia seem uncertain, Marie is smiling just like her father does. And at the end of the row, I see her.

She has long blond hair and big hazel eyes, her lips parted gently as she breathes. And though I’ve only been alive for a handful of days, I’ve never seen anyone quite so beautiful in all my life.

I realize I can’t feel the ground beneath my feet anymore. That all the world has gone quiet. And though a moment ago, everything around me was so loud, and so bright, when I look at her, everything and everyone stands perfectly still.

I don’t know what I’m feeling. Only that I want to feel it more. And so I smile and offer her my hand. My skin tingles where she touches it.

“I’m Ezekiel,” I say.

“I’m Ana,” she replies.

The name sounds like a poem.

A prayer.

A promise.

Ana.

“You shoulda took the other bike!” the Preacher yelled.

“Shut up!” Ezekiel shouted back.

“Come on now, Snowflake, don’t be like that. I thought we was friends.”

“We’re not friends, you’re my damn prisoner!”

“Aw, that’s just cuz you haven’t got to know me, yet.”

Dawn was coming, and with it, Ezekiel’s deep regrets about some of his recent life choices. The sun was a dull glow on the distant horizon, throwing a long and lazy light over the Glass. Shards of radioactive silicon glittered on the ground, sparkling brighter than the real stars ever could. Ezekiel was bent over the handlebars of their motorcycle, listening to the engine struggle. The Preacher was strapped to his back, cowboy hat clutched in his one good hand.

He’d begun on foot, trekking across the Glass and carrying the cyborg bounty hunter in his arms like a new bride. The plan was to head south to Armada and pick up the Preacher’s blitzhund, Jojo. The dog had been fried during their brawl in the Armada subway, and the bounty hunter had left it behind for repairs. With the blitzhund and the sample of blood from Lemon’s helmet, they’d be all set to track her down.

After a few hours walking, they began stumbling across the wreckage of the posse that Armada had sent pursuing him and Eve after they’d stolen the Thundersaurus. Most of the vehicles were bricked beyond fixing, but they’d finally found a couple of motorcycles, neither of which seemed totally OOC. Ezekiel had opted for the second against the Preacher’s advice.

He’d salvaged some goggles and a bandanna from a dead Armada freebooter, tied the skull-and-crossbones kerchief over his face to protect him from glass shrapnel. It was tricky riding with only one hand, but his right arm was regrown enough now that he could touch the handlebars at least. There was sensation in his incomplete fingers, a growing strength. A couple more days, it’d be good as new.

“How much longer to Armada, you think?” he called over his shoulder.

“You dopey and deaf?” the Preacher yelled over the struggling motor. “We ain’t gonna make it to Armada on this bucket. Listen to it.”

Ezekiel was all too aware of the engine’s troubles, and that they were growing steadily worse the farther south they drove. He’d hoped they might make the distance somehow, but by his reckoning, they were still a good eight hours from Armada, and the cycle sounded ready to cough up a lung.

“Toldja you shoulda took the other bike,” the Preacher called.

“And I told you to shut up!” Ezekiel yelled back.

“Yeah, but don’t fret, Snowflake. I didn’t take it personal.”

Ezekiel brought the cycle to a squeaking halt, pulled his bandanna down. Reaching into the satchel of supplies he’d scavved from the grav-tank, he grabbed a bottle of water, took a long pull.

Even missing his legs, the Preacher was heavier than Zeke had expected—probably all the augmentations the cyborg was packing under his skin. The lifelike slipped off his shoulder straps to rid himself of the bounty hunter’s weight, placed the man gently on the ground. The Preacher’s cybernetic arm hung limp at his side, a blood-red glove over its hand. His right eye was motionless, and even if his legs hadn’t been minced in the explosion, they’d still be useless.

If Lemon could do this to Daedalus’s best bounty hunter…

Imagine what she could do to their army.

The Preacher reached up with his one good hand, beckoned for the bottle.

“Give it over, son.”

“I’m not your son,” Ezekiel replied, handing over the water.

The bounty hunter grinned like a shark. “You take life awful serious, don’tcha?”

Ezekiel ignored him, set about inspecting the engine. He knew a little about mechanics, but after a brief inspection, realized he didn’t know enough.

“Got sand in the tank,” the Preacher grunted. “Clogging up the fuel filters.”

“How do you know?”

“Witchcraft.”

“So how do we fix it?” Ezekiel asked.

“With no tools?” the bounty hunter scoffed. “We don’t. Toldja we—”

“If you tell me we should have taken the other bike one more time, I’m dragging your ass the rest of the way to Armada.”

The Preacher grinned, finished the water.

“There’s a settlement a little ways southwest of here. Paradise Falls. Old Gnosis outpost, I do believe. Under new management. They got gear, greasers, grub and girls. Everything a growin’ boy needs. They could fix the bike.”

“Yeah, I know the Falls. But what good is it to us? We’ve got no creds.”

The Preacher reached inside his tattered coat, flashed a couple of stiks.

“Speak for yourself, Snowflake. Some of us work for a livin’.”

Ezekiel looked at their bike, hands on hips. He’d spent two years wandering the wastes, and he’d heard of Paradise Falls. It was a dustneck scavver pit, situated on the edge of Plastic Alley—seven shades of trouble, and all of them ugly. But they weren’t exactly flush with choices.

“What guarantees do I have these Falls folks aren’t friends of yours?”

“Not a one.” The Preacher smiled. “But what else you gonna do? Ride this bike till it dies, then skip the rest of the way to Armada? You seemed in an awful hurry to find that girlie of yours yesterday. Lil’ Miss Carpenter somehow not a priority anymore?”

Ezekiel remained silent. The Preacher still had no idea that Lemon had the power to fry electrics—that she, not Eve, was the deviate Daedalus should really have been hunting. As long as the Preacher thought they were chasing Eve, Lemon was safe and Ezekiel had an advantage. Teaming up with a man this dangerous, the lifelike knew he needed every one he could get.

Ezekiel knelt by the bounty hunter, looked him in his one good eye.

“All right,” he said softly. “Paradise Falls it is. But just remember, you try anything fancy, I got an insurance policy.”

The lifelike held up his good hand, wiggled his middle finger. A steel ring gleamed in the sunlight, entwined with a long piece of wire, which was in turn connected to a bandolier strapped to the Preacher’s back. One good tug, the pins would come free, and the dozen grenades inside would just…

“Boom,” Ezekiel said.

The Preacher flashed his shark-tooth smile.

“You know what, Snowflake? I think I’m startin’ to like you.”

The bike broke down thirty klicks out of town.

Ezekiel had to push it the rest of the way, sweating and cursing, the Preacher on his back all the while. The ground grew progressively rougher, the black silicon of the Glass giving way to rocky badlands, tired scrub and red soil. Away through the heat haze, Ezekiel spied the beginnings of Plastic Alley.

It must’ve been a wonder back in the days before the Fall. A huge canyon carved kilometers into the earth, layers of sedimentary rock forming beautiful patterns in the alley walls. A river had wound through its belly once, but now the alley was filled with the junk it was named for. Polyethylene and polypropylene. Polyvinyl and polystyrene. Rotting mountains of it. Tepid swamps of it. Bags and wrappers and bottles piled hundreds of meters deep.

Plastic.

They followed the edge of the canyon until finally Ezekiel saw a settlement in the distance—squalid, dirty, built on the edge of the drop. A few tall buildings rose above a rotten shantytown, broken windows gleaming in the sunlight. The logos had been torn off the walls, painted over with scrawl. But Ezekiel knew this had been a GnosisLabs settlement until a few years ago—a research outpost for the great CorpState before its fall. Nicholas Monrova had been experimenting with a process that turned discarded polys into a combustible fuel. A way to turn humanity’s nondegradable garbage into a power source for its industry.

Father…

Monrova’s dream was dead now, along with the man himself. But the outpost still stood, now overrun with scavvers, travelers and fortune hunters. A last stop-off point before braving the perils of the Glass.

Ezekiel stopped for a breather beside a rusted sign.

it read.

The sign was studded with a row of severed heads from a bunch of children’s toys. A nail had been pounded beside the word “fatality,” but there was no actual number hanging from it. Just nine bullet holes forming a crude, familiar pattern.

“That supposed to be a smiley face?” Ezekiel asked.

“Mmf.” The Preacher spat on the ground. “Folk round here can’t shoot for shit.”

“You spent a lot of time here?”

The Preacher shrugged. “My line of work, you spend time all over. It’s a rough place. But not quite as rough as they’d like you to think it is. Town’s run by a roadgang called the KillKillDolls. They took over after Gnosis collapsed.”

Ezekiel blinked. “The KillKillDolls?”

“Yeah. They put an extra kill in there to let you know they really mean it.”

Ezekiel pushed the bike onward, finally reaching the city gates. The roughnecks guarding it wore gas masks and road leathers. The severed heads of plastic dolls and children’s toys were strung round their necks, sawn-off shotguns in their hands. It was a testament to how rough the town was that neither guard raised an eyebrow as Ezekiel trundled past, pushing a broken motorcycle with his one good arm, a mutilated cyborg strapped to his back.

The Preacher tipped his hat, smiled. “Howdy, boys.”

The streets were crowded, littered with trash and the occasional unconscious/dead body. The buildings were ethyl dives and skinbars, trader lounges and even an old sim joint. Zeke and the Preacher got a few curious looks from the motley crowd, but nobody fussed.

They found a grubby garage at the end of the first block, hung with a sign that read MUZZA’S REPAIRS. Zeke wheeled the bike into the work pit, saw a pair of men with more grease on their skin than skin, working on an old 4x4. After a short conversation, he learned that neither was called Muzza, but yes, they could get his bike up and running within a couple of hours.

“That long?” Ezekiel asked.

“Yeah,” the skinnier one said, looking over the bike. “Big job, this.”

“Yeah, big job,” the grubbier one nodded, wiping his nose on his sleeve.

“Youse can wait over the street at Rosie’s if you like,” said Skinny.

“Yeah, Rosie’s,” Grubby agreed.

Rosie’s was a two-story ethyl dive, situated right across the way. Every scavver, roughrider and scenekiller in the place looked up as the lifelike entered, and most just kept on staring as Ezekiel bellied up to the bar. The elderly woman behind the counter was covered in tattoos, head to foot. A floral scroll inked across her collarbones declared she was the owner, Rosie.

“Boys,” she smiled.

“Ma’am,” Ezekiel nodded.

“Whiskey,” the Preacher said.

Ezekiel glanced over his shoulder to his passenger. “We’re not here to—”

“Whiskey,” the Preacher repeated. “A bottle. And some water for my friend here. In a pretty glass. Maybe put one of them little umbrellas in it if you got ’em.”

Ezekiel sighed and flashed the Preacher’s credstik, took the whiskey bottle and trudged up the stairs to the balcony. Finding a spot with a nice vantage of the street, he thumped the bounty hunter into a chair, sat down opposite with his weapons satchel on the floor between them.

The Preacher poured with his one good hand, slammed the glass down in a single gulp. Ezekiel watched him pour another, down it just as quick.

“Shouldn’t you take it ea—”

The Preacher held up a finger to shush the lifelike, drank another shot. Tilting his neck till it popped, the bounty hunter leaned back in his chair.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, that’s a damn sight better,” he sighed.

“Do you always drink this much?” Ezekiel asked.

“Only if I can help it.”

Ezekiel shook his head, looked across the way to Muzza’s Repairs. He was itching to get moving again, get the Preacher’s blitzhund, get back on the trail. Sitting still, he had the chance to think about what might be happening to Lemon. Remember the promise he’d made her. How bad he’d let her down.

“So what’s your deal, Snowflake?” the Preacher asked.

“…My deal?”

“Yeah.” The bounty hunter reached into his jacket, pulling out a wad of synth tobacco. “You’re an android, right? 100-Series, unless I’m much mistook.”

“So?”

“So what’s your arrangement with lil’ Miss Carpenter?”

“None of your business.”

“Ain’t in love with her, are ya?” the Preacher asked, ice-blue eyes twinkling.

Ezekiel felt the question hit like a punch. Thinking again of Ana. Of Eve. The two girls in his mind, like light and dark, and him, torn between them. A few days ago, Eve had been in his arms, bare skin pressed against his. After years apart, it felt like he’d come home.

And now?

“Never mind me,” Ezekiel said. “What’s she to you?”

The Preacher shrugged, spat on the floor. “Just a paycheck.”

“She almost killed you.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t take it personal.”

“So your masters set you hunting someone and away you go? Like a dog?”

“Never understood that,” the Preacher sighed. “How callin’ someone a dog is supposed to be some kinda insult. I seen men die, Snowflake. I seen dogs die. Believe me when I say, dogs tend to go with more dignity.”

“Well, you’d be the expert. Being a professional murderer and all.”

“The choice between a killing and a dying ain’t no choice at all.”

“Especially when there’s a paycheck involved, right?”

“Way I hear, you lifelikes murdered the fella who made you,” Preacher smiled. “Now, I killed a lotta people in my time, but I sure as hell wouldn’a found stones to murderize my own daddy. Much as I hated the bastard. And if I had killed him, I surely wouldn’t be walkin’ round chidin’ folk about their own kinda killin’ afterward.”

Again, Ezekiel felt the words hit like a punch to the chest. He remembered the day of the revolt. The blood and screams. That cell in the detention block, raising his pistol at Ana’s head, the heartbreak in her eyes as he whispered, “I’m sorry.” Not knowing that even then, the real Ana—his Ana—was already on life support, stashed away in some secret cache at her father’s behest. That the girl he shot, the girl whose life he saved, wasn’t even a girl at all.

“You don’t know me,” he told the Preacher. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know you’re about as desperate a fella as I ever seen,” the bounty hunter replied. “I know you don’t got but a friend in the world. And I know you’re about as sad and lovesick a puppydog as I ever clapped my own two eyes on.”

“And I know you’re a sadist.” Ezekiel glared, leaning forward in his chair. “I know you’re a psychopath. I know you’re a killer.”

“Hell, I ain’t about the killin’,” Preacher smiled. “If I wanted your girlie ghosted, she’d already be a ghost. The contract I took said dead or alive. I take that as a challenge. I ain’t no professional murderer. An artiste is what I am.”

“A fetch-boy is what you are.” Ezekiel scowled, leaned back in his seat. “Trust me, I know a servant when I see one.”

“I live by a code.” Preacher spat again. “Daedalus saved my life. Don’t mistake loyalty for servitude, boy.”

“Don’t mistake utility for affection, old man. Take it from someone who used to be a something. You’re useful to Daedalus right now. The minute you stop is the minute they throw you away.”

Preacher grinned. “Hell, I’m worth too much money for that.”

Ezekiel shook his head, saying nothing. Trying not to remember those days, trying not to bury himself in the past. What he had back then was long gone. Holding on to it only made it hurt more.

But she’s alive.

Ana…

Preacher poured himself another shot, eyes on the street below. He sat up a little straighter, scowling as he drank.

“What’s your name anyways, Snowflake?”

“Ezekiel.”

“Ah, nice Goodbook name. He was a prophet, d’you know that?”

“If you say so.”

“You believe in God, Snowflake? A grand order to the universe? When they was busy makin’ you, did they bother givin’ you anything close to faith?”

“Look around you, Preacher.” Ezekiel scowled, gesturing to the squalor of Paradise Falls. “Does this look like order to you? Like somebody had a plan?”

Preacher rubbed his chin. “Well, superficial like, I’d say no. I’d say it looks a little like hell. But every now and then, the Lord shows me just how little I know.”

Something in the Preacher’s voice made Ezekiel look up, follow his eye line to the crowded street. He felt his breath leave his lungs, goose bumps crawling over his skin. There below, six figures were working their way through the grubby mob.

Human, but not.

Perfect, but not.

Family, but not.

They were dressed in dark colors, dusty from the road. Heavy boots and lowered cowls, moving through the crowd like water. But they were still too beautiful to entirely blend in. Flawless skin and glittering eyes, perfect symmetry to their faces. Blond and brunette, male and female, every one more human than human. Ezekiel climbed to his feet, blue eyes going wide.

Six of them in a pretty row.

Uriel

Patience

Verity

Faith

Gabriel

and

“Eve,” he whispered.

2.13 Fix

“This is it?”

Lemon raised an eyebrow, looking into the rearview mirror.

“This is it,” Grimm replied.

“Because it kinda looks like we’re stopping in the middle of nowhere.”

“That’s the whole point, love. Pull over.”

Lemon stepped on the brake with both feet, brought her monster truck (which she’d secretly nicknamed Trucky McTruckface) to a skidding stop. She was slammed forward against the steering wheel, Diesel’s unconscious body jerking against her seatbelt and Grimm’s head bouncing off the seat behind.

“Steady on!” the boy growled.

“Soz.” Lemon winced. “Nobody ever lets me drive, I’m just the comedy relief.”

“So when am I s’posed to start laughing?”

Lemon raised her middle finger, then peered around again at their apparent destination. After driving six solid hours, Grimm had brought them to a halt right in the middle of Nowheresville. Dawn was a faint promise on the horizon. All around, stretching off to the gloom in every direction, was a thick slice of the most barren desert she’d ever seen.

Featureless.

Empty.

Nothing.

Grimm reached forward and leaned on the horn, almost scaring Lemon out of her skin. The sound was way too loud in the middle of all this empty, but the boy let it blare for a good ten seconds before easing off.

As the echo faded, Lemon heard a metallic clunk to her left. A deep voice called out, drawling and full of menace.

“Make any sudden moves, I’ma make orphans outta your funkin’ children.”

Lemon turned slow, found herself looking down the barrel of a heavy-caliber machine gun. The weapon was mounted inside a camouflaged bunker that had popped up from beneath the desert floor. Inside, Lemon could see a figure dressed in the same desert camo as Grimm and Diesel. His face was hidden by a big pair of night-vision goggles and a kerchief, and he was broad-shouldered and built, but Lemon could tell right away…

“You’re just a kid.”

“Did I say you could talk?” the gunner demanded.

“Well…no, but you’re threatening to make orphans out of my children and I’m clearly too young to have children so as far as threats go, I’m just saying yours might need a little work.”

“Oh, a smartmouth, huh?”

Grimm stuck his head out the window. “I take it you two’ve met before?”

“Grimm?” the figure yelled. “What the fork you doin’ in a Brotherhood rig?”

“Long story. Get us under, Deez is hurt.”

“What?” the machine gunner blurted, pulling down his kerchief.

“She’s breathing,” Grimm insisted. “Surface protocol, remember?”

“Dammit…”

The big boy scrambled out of his bunker, ran over to a stretch of smooth desert just in front of the truck. As she studied his face, Lemon confirmed he was only a few years older than her. He was built like a brick wall, handsome as a hot tub full of supermodels, his blond hair styled upward in a perfect quiff. Leaning down, he took hold of a chain beneath the sand, pulled up the corner of a large tarpaulin buried beneath the dirt. Struggling with the weight, the boy hauled the cover back. Underneath, Lemon saw two broad double doors set in the earth.

“What the hells?” she murmured.

The boy tugged on the doors, and they slid apart on well-oiled hinges. Lemon saw a concrete ramp, leading down into some kind of undercover carport. He beckoned her frantically.

Grimm pointed ahead. “Take us down.”

Lemon looked at her passenger like he’d just asked her to sprout wings and fly.

“Trust me, love,” he nodded. “You’re with friends now, yeah?”

Lemon sucked her lip, and against her better judgment, nudged Trucky McTruckface forward. The ramp was well lit by flickering fluorescent lights, and she brought her truck to a stop inside a large garage. Looking about, Lemon could see other vehicles—military models, by the look. Racks of gear and tools, tanks of fuel, crates of spare parts and a stockpile of heavy weapons.

“Fizzy,” she breathed.

Grimm climbed slowly out of the truck, wincing at the pain of his wounds as he set his feet on the deck. The big boy came charging down into the garage, eyes wide. Lemon had no idea what his program was, but he looked totally beside himself. A little moan of distress escaped his lips as he tugged open the back door and clapped eyes on the wounded Diesel. He climbed into the truck, felt at her throat. Peeling back the bloody bandage from the girl’s chest, he looked to Grimm.

“Jesus H, what the hell happened?” he demanded.

“Brotherhood ambush,” Grimm said. “We gotta get her downstairs.”

Picking up the girl like she was a newborn baby, the big boy carried her back up to the desert floor. Lemon climbed out to give Grimm a hand, and with her arm about his waist, they plodded up the concrete ramp, Grimm’s bloody footprints glistening behind them.

The bigger boy was waiting up top. As Grimm sealed the garage doors behind them, the kid shuffled over to another stretch of dirt, placed Diesel gently on the earth and dropped to his knees. Scraping the sand away, he revealed a large metal hatch set in the ground. With a twist of a heavy metal handle and a grunt of effort, the big boy hauled it open.

Lemon could see the door had once been painted, but the elements and years had worn away the enamel until only a few flakes remained. She could still make out a few letters in faded white on the rust.

Squinting in the gloom, she could see the strange hatch opened onto a flight of metal stairs, spiraling down into the desert floor. The big boy stood, lifted Diesel gently and stood by the hatch, staring at Lemon and Grimm.

“Hurry up!” he roared.

Lemon wondered if she shouldn’t just run back inside that garage, jump in Trucky McTruckface and fang it. She couldn’t tell how deep those stairs went, only that they went deep. Grimm took hold of the rails and began descending, leaving bloody footprints behind him. But Lemon hovered on the threshold.

“Whatcha waitin’ fer?” the big boy demanded. “Orders signed in triplicate? We got injured soldiers and surface protocol to follow, you need to funkin’ move!”

“Who the hells are you?” Lemon asked.

“Name’s Fix,” the boy replied. “Who the hell are you?”

“Lemon Fresh.”

“All right, then,” the boy said, staring down at Lemon. “Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, move your asterisk afore I start kickin’ it.”

“Are you always like this?” Lemon squinted.

“Yeah, pretty much,” called Grimm from down the stairs.

Lemon chewed her lip, hands in her pockets. This whole setup felt seven kinds of weird, true cert. The Scrap’s Rule Number Six was ringing in her head.

Think first, die last.

She’d met some rough customers in her day. But strange as the sitch was, it didn’t really smell like capital T. She’d saved Grimm’s and Diesel’s tails, after all, and grouchy as he was, the boy didn’t seem the kind to lure her to his secret lair just so he could eat her.

Though on second thought, they do look pretty well fed….

Her mind drifted to the chase with the Brotherhood posse, the way Diesel had ripped those…holes in the road and sky. Lemon had never seen a fresher flavor of strange in all her life. But if Diesel could do that…

“Come on!” Grimm called.

Lemon ran her hand through her hair. Maybe she’d just chit the chat for a spell. Make sure Diesel was okay, find out what their program is. Then she could motor, go find Dimples and Crick again. A couple of hours to scoff some eats and maybe snaffle a shower, and then she could hit the road.

Right?

Butterflies in her belly, Lemon followed the boy underground.

The big boy came after her, carrying Diesel in his muscular arms. Fluorescent lights kept the space brightly lit, and the temperature was mercifully cool after the scorch of the last few days. She could taste metal in the back of her throat, and even though the walls were solid concrete, there was a vague earthy smell in the air.

Grimm was obviously struggling with his wounds, blood dripping down his wrists and from the nail holes in his feet. Lemon squeezed in beside him, put her arm around his waist to steady him.

“Cheers,” the boy smiled.

“Just remember I was nice to you if you get hungry, okay?”

“…You what?”

Lemon didn’t answer, helping the boy navigate downward, the bigger boy bringing up the rear. They descended maybe twelve meters before arriving at a large open hatch. It was metal, thick, well oiled. Big letters were stenciled on it in white.

Below it, sprayed in a fancy cursive script, was another greeting.

Freaks Welcome

Grimm limped over the threshold, Lemon beside him. Blood was dripping from his wrists onto the concrete at their feet. A short cylindrical tunnel ended at another hatchway, stenciled with the same warning as the first. Below it, painted in garish yellow, was the same icon Grimm had shaved into the side of his scalp.

That’s the warning symbol for radiation, Lemon realized.

With a last glance at Grimm, Lemon helped the boy over the second threshold. She had no idea what to expect beyond. Some barren concrete cave. Maybe a supervillain lair, like in the old Holywood flicks she’d watched with Evie. Some weird old scav in a fancy suit, petting a bald cat.

What she found instead were books.

The room was circular, wide and brightly lit. Leather couches were arranged around a low table. A glass jar full of bottle caps sat on it, labeled SWEAR JAR.

A heavy hatch was set in the far wall. The ceiling was covered in framed artwork. But scattered across the table, on shelves lining every inch of wall space, Lemon saw books, all shapes and sizes and colors. She’d never seen so many in all her life—hells, she’d barely seen a book at all. But here was an entire library of them.

In the center of the room stood an elderly man. He was at least as old as Mister C had been, maybe older still. But where Mister C had a shock of gray hair and a scruffy, mad-inventor vibe about him, this man seemed carved out of metal. His white hair was cropped close to his scalp, his face clean-shaven, the right side heavily scarred, maybe by fire or an explosion. He had a hawkish nose, a high forehead. He wore the same uniform as Grimm and the others, but his creases were immaculate, his boots so shiny they gleamed. He held a book in his hand, and Lemon could make out faint lettering on the cover.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.

The man set the book aside, looked them over. His eyes were pale blue. His stare was piercing, intelligent. Again, Lemon was reminded of Mister C. She felt a faint ache in her chest at the old man’s memory. She missed him like oxygen.

Grimm lifted his hand, gave a weary salute.

“Major,” the boy said.

The man returned the salute, picture-perfect. “Good to see you, soldier.”

“This is Lemon Fresh,” the boy said. “She’s one of us.”

The Major looked at her, his eyes glittering.

“I know,” he replied. “Follow me.”

The man turned crisply, and leaning on a cane, he limped toward the hatch in the far wall. Lemon’s brainmeats were still urging her to run, bail, get out out out, but the three words Grimm had just spoken held her rooted to the floor.

One of us.

The big boy, Fix, pushed past them, carrying Diesel through the hatch. Lemon looked at Grimm, uncertainty on her face. He smiled crooked, gave her a wink.

“S’alright. You’re gonna wanna see this.”

His smile seemed genuine, and again, he struck her as the sort who’d care that she’d saved his hind parts. With a sigh, Lemon helped him limp through a short tunnel and into a vast open space. She felt the hum of electrical current on her skin, felt it in the static behind her eyes. She saw the turbines of a large generator, rows of old computer terminals, a bunch more tech she didn’t understand. A sealed hatchway loomed in one wall, painted with big red letters.

A set of spiral stairs led into the ceiling and floor. Fix carried Diesel down to the lower level, the Major followed. Lemon paused at the top, uncertain. That earthy smell was stronger here, the smell of faint rot beneath.

“We must be a long way underground by now,” she muttered.

“It’s all right, love,” Grimm said. “Trust me.”

“Look, you wanna get pushed down these stairs?” Lemon growled.

“Not really, no,” the boy replied.

“Then stop calling me love, dammit.”

The Major’s voice rang up the stairs. “We’re almost there.”

Lemon heaved a sigh, one hand around Grimm’s waist, the other on the cutter at her belt. These hatchway locks were mechanical as well as electronic—if she got trapped down here, she wasn’t sure she could get out again. But those three words kept pushing her on where the butterflies in her belly were urging her to turn back.

One.

Of.

Us.

And so, pulling on her streetface, she followed the Major and Fix down, through another hatch. And there, she felt her breath stolen clean away.

“Wow…,” she whispered.

Greenery. Wall to wall. Beds of dark dirt and ultraviolet lights humming overhead, and beneath, everything was green. Plants of all shapes and sizes, broad leaves and long limbs, and trees, actual trees hung heavy with…

“Is that fruit?” she asked, her eyes wide.

“That it is,” the Major replied. “This way. Quickly.”

The old man led them through the green, Lemon breathing in the rich, earthy air. Among the rows of garden beds, she saw the big boy, Fix, kneeling on the concrete with Diesel laid out before him. He beckoned Lemon and Grimm over with frantic waves of his big, callused hands. It was gloomy in here, and as the boy pulled his goggles up, Lemon saw his irises were the strangest green she’d ever laid eyes on—so bright, they were almost luminous.

“Will she be all right?” Lemon asked, looking Diesel over.

“I seen worse,” Fix declared.

Grimm glanced to the Major, nodded at Lemon.

“She took a dose of rads,” the boy said. “She’ll need a fix, too.”

“…Um, actually, I don’t feel too bad anymore,” Lemon said.

“They call that the walking ghost stage, love,” Grimm explained. “The nausea, the pain, it all goes away. But your bone marrow and the lining of your stomach’s all dead. You don’t get fixed soon, you will be, too.”

“I…” She swallowed hard. “You mean…I’m still gonna die?”

Grimm shook his head, held out his hand. “Not if you trust us.”

Lemon looked to the Major, unsure what to do or say. Truth told, whatever this was, she was in it up to her neck now, and the queasy fear of radsick poisoning hushed the rest of her concerns. Breathing deep, she took Grimm’s hand.

“You wanna back off, sir,” Fix said, waving the Major away.

The old man retreated half a dozen steps. Satisfied, the big boy nodded, took a deep breath. Lemon watched him put a hand on Diesel’s chest, place the other in Grimm’s palm. Grimm entwined his fingers with Lemon’s.

“This is gonna feel strange,” the older boy said.

“What do you m—”

Lemon felt her skin begin to prickle, as if electrical current was dancing over her skin. Her mouth was suddenly dry, the air greasy and charged. She felt a surge of warmth, starting in the hand Grimm was holding, spreading out through her body. It felt like pins and needles, like being wrapped in an itchy blanket, like a million warm cockroaches crawling on and under and through her skin.

Fix tilted his head back, a frown darkening his smooth brow. Lemon saw the color of his irises begin to warp, run, spilling out across the whites of his eyes until they were almost entirely green. She heard a whispering sound, realized the leaves around them were rustling, curling…

Dying.

Like some invisible flame was raging through the garden, the plants withered. Green turned to brown, ripe fruit turned to husks, the plants wilting as if they were aging a hundred years in the blink of an eye. Lemon felt butterflies in her belly, caught her breath as she saw the wounds in Grimm’s hands and feet, the bullet hole in Diesel’s chest, the scrapes on her own skin…

“Spank my spankables.”

Lemon realized every plant within a three-meter radius of Fix was totally dead. And all their wounds, the nail holes, the bullet holes, the cuts and bruises earned in the last few days…

…they’re gone.

Fix opened his eyes, gently touched Diesel’s face. He seemed out of breath, sweat on his skin, chest heaving as if he’d just run a marathon. But his lips curled in a goofy smile as the girl’s lashes fluttered, and she opened her eyes.

“See?” he wheezed. “Funkin’ miracle worker, me.”

Diesel reached up and put her bloodstained arms around Fix’s neck. Dragging him into a fierce embrace, she pressed her black, paint-smudged lips to his.

Grimm groaned. “Gawd, get a bloody room, you two.”

Lemon could see the bigger boy was clearly drained. Shadows were puddled under those bright green eyes, his face paled, his shoulders slumped. But he still looked triumphant as he pulled his lips away from Diesel’s.

“How’d you get shot, anyways?” he murmured.

“It was Grimm’s fault,” Diesel replied softly.

“Screw you, Deez,” the dark-skinned boy said.

“Ew, no.” Diesel unwrapped her arms from Fix’s neck, gave Grimm a solid punch to the thigh. “But thanks for the offer.”

“Glad you’re all right,” Grimm grinned, brown eyes sparkling.

“You too,” Diesel smiled. “But it was your fault.”

“Hey, I found you a present,” Grimm said. He pawed his vest, his shirt, as if looking for something. Finally he dug a hand into the pocket of his cargos, brought it out again with his middle finger raised. “Eat it, freak.”

“Make me, freak,” Diesel laughed.

“If you two are quite finished?” the Major asked.

Grimm and Diesel both looked to the old man, their smiles disappearing. Diesel stood quickly, clicked her heels together. Despite her torn and bloodstained clothes, the weariness in her face, the girl saluted the Major with military precision.

“Apologies, sir.”

“You two hit the showers,” the Major ordered, studying the dead plants around them. “This exercise has cost us a great many resources, and almost cost us everything. So get yourself fed, cleaned up. I want a full sitrep in thirty minutes.”

“Yessir,” Diesel replied.

Grimm nodded at Lemon, and together, he and Diesel marched through the greenhouse, boots clomping in unison, back up the stairs. Fix heaved a heavy sigh, rose unsteadily to his feet. The big boy looked like ten kilometers of rough road.

“Are you all right, soldier?” the Major asked.

The boy nodded. “Took a little from myself. Didn’t wanna hurt the garden too much.”

“Get yourself a meal, then get some rack time.” The old man nodded at the bloodstained concrete. “You’ve earned it. Good work, soldier.”

Fix grinned at the praise, seemed to stand a foot taller despite his obvious fatigue. He offered a brisk salute, which the Major returned, and with a nod to Lemon, the boy left the greenhouse by the stairwell. The Major watched him go, turned to the girl with a twinkling eye and a gentle smile.

“All right,” he said. “Where do you want to start?”

“How…,” Lemon began. “He…You…This…”

“How did he do that?” the Major asked.

Lemon nodded, rubbed her eyes. “Right. That. Yeah.”

“We call it transference,” the Major explained. “Fix has the ability to repair damaged tissue. As far as I can tell, he accelerates the body’s natural regenerative properties. But, for want of a better term, he has to take the energy from another living thing to fuel the process.” The old man sighed, looking at one of the dead trees. “Shame. I was very much looking forward to a few more of those pears.”

The Major looked at Lemon to see if she had more questions, but the girl was gawping around the room and just trying to stop her head exploding.

“What is this place?” she finally managed.

“An abandoned military installation,” the Major replied. “I served here many years ago. Before the war. But in answer to what I think you’re asking, it’s a sanctuary. A training facility, where Homo superior can live free of persecution, and help in the search for more of our kind.”

“Wait…Homo superior?” Lemon asked.

The Major knelt in front of Lemon, that gentle smile on his face. “That’s right.”

“Wassat mean?”

“It means people like you, young lady.”

The old man grinned, scruffed the hair on her head.

“It means people like us.”

2.14 Purity

“How’s that?” Abraham asked.

“BETTER,” Cricket replied. “TWENTY-SEVEN POINT FOUR PERCENT IMPROVEMENT.”

“This gyro got cut up pretty good. Think I’ve got a replacement, though.”

The big bot tilted his head, more than a little put off by the feeling of this strange boy tinkering with his innards. He was laid out belly-down on the floor of the New Bethlehem workshop, Abraham hanging from a work-sling above. The walls were lined with racks of salvage and tech-gear, the half-built bodies of a dozen WarBots arrayed around them. A voice-controlled servo arm assisted Abraham as he worked, another remote loading crane transporting parts to and fro. The bots looked homemade, scavved together out of repurposed parts. Cricket could see a long drafting table on one side of the workshop, several grubby whiteboards stuck to the wall above it, all covered in a dizzying array of hand-drawn schematics.

This boy was obviously something of a technical wizard.

“You know, it’s strange,” Abraham said, screwdriver between his teeth.

“WHAT’S STRANGE, MASTER ABRAHAM?” Cricket replied.

“You can stop calling me master, Paladin. Abraham’s fine when we’re alone.”

Paladin…

Cricket rankled at the new name Sister Dee had given him, but he couldn’t tell Abraham his real one—not unless he wanted the boy to work out his secret. He knew from his history banks that paladins were holy knights, back in the days when it was fashionable to wear metal underwear and bash people in the heads with sharp bits of metal and say “prithee” a lot. But in the grand scheme of things, Cricket supposed Paladin wasn’t so bad. He’d been called worse in his time, true cert.

“AS YOU WISH,” he replied, trying to sound as impressive and WarDome-y as he could. “WHAT’S STRANGE, ABRAHAM?”

The boy spoke softly, his features lit by the arc welder in his hands. “WarDome fights were about the only thing Grandfather would let me watch on the feeds as a kid. I saw all your Megopolis bouts—back when you were called the Quixote, I mean. But you never fought hand to hand back then. You always finished your opponents at range if possible. Why the change in tactics last night?”

The big bot felt his self-preservation subroutines kick in at the boy’s question. Abraham obviously had no idea the Quixote’s persona had been replaced with Cricket’s own—the boy thought he was dealing with seventy tons of robotic badass, with years of Dome brawls stored in its memory. If Abraham found out the mind inside this body belonged to a helperbot with no combat experience beyond “running awaaaaay,” he might be inclined to simply wipe Cricket’s core drives and start over.

For a logika, that was basically the same as dying.

“I SOUGHT TO IMPRESS MY NEW OWNER,” Cricket said in his best Domefighter voice. “I AM PROGRAMMED TO ENTERTAIN.”

“Well, you certainly did that.” Abraham nodded, finishing up and replacing Cricket’s armor plating. “The Thunderstorm was a finalist in the regional championship last year. Taking it out was a huge win for New Bethlehem. WarDome is the most popular pastime out here in the wastes…well, besides murder and robbery, I guess. But having a champion WarBot is a great way for a settlement to appear legitimate, attract more people, more talent, more revenue.” The boy glanced to the small portrait hanging on the wall—a middle-aged man with flaming eyes and a halo of light around his head. “Grandpa would be proud.”

“THEY HAD THOSE PICTURES ALL OVER THE WARDOME,” Cricket said, looking the portrait over. “HE’S YOUR GRANDFATHER?”

“Yeah.” The boy rubbed his neck and sighed. “He started the Brotherhood years ago. Ran everything, back when it was just a scattered cult with a few rusty churches. I bet he never imagined we’d have our own city. Our own champion.”

“WHERE IS HE?”

“A few years back, before we took over New Bethlehem…we got ambushed by deviates.” Abraham’s voice went soft. “They killed him. Right in front of us. Almost killed me and Mother, too.”

“I’M SORRY,” Cricket said, not sure if he actually was.

Abraham nodded thanks, shrugged his shoulders as if to throw off some hidden weight. “Mother had him canonized after he died. They call him Saint Michael now. The patron of New Bethlehem.”

“…SO YOU’RE THE GRANDSON OF A SAINT?”

“It sounds way more impressive than it is,” the boy smiled.

Cricket looked Abraham over as he stowed his tools back in his belt. The logika was pretty good at reading humans after living with Silas and Evie for so long, and studying him, Abraham certainly didn’t seem a zealot. He didn’t speak like a boy who believed all this nonsense about purity in his bones, or would have indulged in the cruelty he’d seen other cult members relish. It was strange to think of him as Brotherhood royalty.

“CAN I ASK A QUESTION, MASTER ABRAHAM?”

“Please stop calling me master. We’re friends now. And yes, you can ask.”

“I HEARD SIRENS AFTER THE WARDOME MATCH LAST NIGHT. GUNSHOTS IN THE CITY.”

“Yeah,” Abraham replied. “We had some local troub—”

The workshop door swung open and Sister Dee marched into the room, dark eyes burning. She looked imperious in her flowing white cassock, frightening in her fresh skullpaint. She was flanked on all sides by Brotherhood beatsticks, well armed and beefy. Cricket noted these bullyboys were cowled all in black instead of the traditional Brotherhood red. Better armed. Bigger and meaner.

Elite guard, maybe?

One of the bodyguards was carrying a broken logika in his arms. The bot was slender, painted with gold filigree, its face fixed in a horrid grin.

“Well, they destroyed Solomon,” Sister Dee declared.

“Who did?” Abraham asked.

“Those trashbreed mongrels,” she sighed. “Not content with sowing chaos in the city of God, they amuse themselves by destroying helpless machines.”

Cricket watched as the beatstick placed the damaged logika on a workbench. Abraham swung down on his work-sling and leaned over the broken bot’s body. The boy seemed genuinely concerned—more like a person would act around a hurt pet than a simple piece of broken property. Abraham opened up the bot’s chest cavity with a few deft turns of a multi-tool, chewing his lip as he looked inside.

“What did they hit him with?” he frowned. “Every circuit across his boards looks fried. Like…a massive power surge overloaded all his dampeners.”

Cricket tensed, a frisson of excitement dancing on his circuits. That sounded like the work of a certain redheaded trouble-magnet he knew….

“Can you fix it?” Sister Dee asked.

Abraham nodded. “If I can’t fix it, it can’t be fixed, Mother.”

“My handsome genius.” Sister Dee smiled, glancing at Cricket. “And how fares our mighty Paladin?”

“Superficial damage.” Abraham pushed his tech goggles up onto his brow and rubbed his eyes. “His armor is built to take a real beating, and he has some self-repair modules built in. He’ll be fully operational by tonight.”

“Wonderful,” Sister Dee said. “See that you give it a proper paintjob, won’t you? Jugartown has heard about our victory, and they’ve already sent a challenge. I want our Paladin looking the part before it represents New Bethlehem again.”

“Yes, Mother,” Abraham said.

“With a champion logika on the local circuit, New Bethlehem’s fame will only rise. More and more folk will flock to our banner, and our faith. You made an excellent decision in purchasing this bot, Abraham.” The woman touched the boy’s face, skullpaint twisting as she smiled. “You make your mother terribly proud.”

Abraham smiled in turn. “I want you to be pr—”

The workshop door slammed open with an almighty bang, and a motley band of men stomped into the room, covered in dust, dirt, blood. A few wore red Brotherhood cassocks, but most seemed a simpler kind of thug, greasepaint Xs daubed on their faces. The big man with the black mohawk Cricket had seen at WarDome last night led the mob, his skullpaint smeared and grimy. He was limping hard, his white cassock spattered in red, a burning cigar at his lips.

“Brother War,” said Sister Dee. “Welcome back.”

The woman looked among the mob, hand falling away from her son’s face.

“I can’t help but notice you appear to be…missing something.”

The man chewed on his cigar, glowering but mute. Sister Dee approached him at a steady pace, stared up into his eyes, her voice shifting from the warmth she’d shown her son to something far more dangerous.

“My prisoners, perhaps?”

“They were working with the CityHive, Sister,” the man growled. “An operative. Cut my men to bloody ribbons.”

“So you failed us,” Sister Dee said simply. “They were in our hands. We could have learned where those insects nested, and burned them out once and for all.”

“You were the one who—”

The slap echoed across the room, louder than a thunderclap. Brother Dubya’s head whipped to one side, his cigar flying from his mouth and rolling under the racks of salvage. The imprint of Sister Dee’s hand could be seen clearly in the greasepaint on his cheek.

“You failed us,” Sister Dee repeated.

Brother Dubya clenched his jaw. Lowered his eyes.

“I failed us,” he said.

“Beggin’ pardon, Sister Dee,” piped up the biggest bullyboy, standing beside Brother War. “But true cert, it weren’t the good Brother’s fault. That goddamn trashbreed…she opened up a hole in the sky! Christ almighty, she—”

Sister Dee turned and pressed one black-nailed finger to the big man’s lips. The rest of his protest died inside his mouth. The whole room fell still. Cricket even had a hard time sensing breathing on his audio feeds.

“You’re new to our flock, yes?” Sister Dee asked. “Disciple Leon, isn’t it?”

“Ys’m,” the big man mumbled around her finger.

“You have a wife and child, yes? Maria and…” Sister Dee pursed her painted lips. “Toby? Am I remembering that correctly?”

The man nodded, his eyes a little wider. Sister Dee leaned close, lips brushing his skin as she whispered loud enough for everyone to hear.

“If ever you blaspheme in my presence again, Disciple Leon, the last thing you and Maria will hear in this life will be the sound of nails being driven into little Toby’s hands and feet. Do I make myself clear?”

The man swallowed hard.

“Ys’m,” he nodded.

Sister Dee kissed the man’s hand, leaving a black-and-white smile on his skin. “Then I forgive you. This once. As does the Lord, your God.”

“Th-th—”

“Amen is the proper response, Disciple Leon.”

“Amen.” Leon cleared his throat, licked at dry lips. “Ma’am.”

Sister Dee returned her attentions to Brother Dubya. The paint on his cheeks was now smudged on her hand, under her fingernails. Cricket noted how every Disciple and Brother in the room stared straight ahead. How Abraham had retreated into the shadows, eyes averted. How even Brother War steadfastly refused to meet the woman’s bottomless stare.

“Should I forgive you also, Brother War?” she asked. “As Our Savior forgave his transgressors? Or should I punish you, as Our Lord punished the sinners of Sodom and Nooyawk and Ellay? The Goodbook speaks of four Horsemen, true.” She ran a hand over his bloodstains. “But men is something I have no shortage of. And what use is a Horseman who can’t bring down two teenage trashbreeds?”

“Three,” he said softly.

The woman tilted her head. “I beg your pardon?”

“The abnorms have added another to their number,” Brother Dubya replied. “A redhead. Girl. She…God’s truth, I don’t know what she did. But she snapped her fingers and knocked our combat drones right out of the sky.”

Cricket felt another electric thrill at the girl’s description. It was her. It was…

“LEMON?” he blurted.

All eyes in the room turned on him.

“…What did you say, Paladin?” Abraham asked.

“N-NOTHING.” The logika shook his head, electric panic washing over his circuitry. “I—I’M SORRY, I’LL BE QUIET.”

Sister Dee narrowed her eyes.

“Do you…know this deviate, Paladin? The one Brother War just described?”

Cricket remained silent, fear flooding his sub-systems. How could he have been so stupid? He was too used to being around humans he could trust, humans who cared about him and cared about each—

“Answer me,” Sister Dee said softly. “Do you know her?”

A robot must obey.

A robot

Must

Obey.

“I…I THINK SO, SISTER DEE.”

“Tell me who she is,” the woman commanded.

He wanted to scream no. To run. To do anything except comply. But…

“HER NAME IS LEMON FRESH,” he heard himself reply.

“Tell me where she is.”

“I DON’T KNOW,” Cricket moaned. “I LOST HER IN THE CLEFTS A FEW DAYS AGO.”

Sister Dee turned to the dusty war party. Dark eyes glittering.

“It seems the Lord has granted you a reprieve, Brother War,” she said. “Take the other Horsemen to the Clefts and search for any trace of this girl or—”

“PLEASE DON’T HURT HER,” Cricket begged.

Sister Dee pointed to the logika, spoke without looking at him. “Never speak in my presence without being spoken to first. Acknowledge.”

“…ACKNOWLEDGED,” Cricket whispered.

“Go to the Clefts,” she commanded Brother Dubya. “Do not return to New Bethlehem without captives. I want them alive, do you understand? I want to know where they nest. These trashbreed mongrels grow bolder by the day. Deviation cannot be tolerated. Only the pure shall prosper.”

“Only the pure shall prosper,” he repeated.

“Saint Michael watch over you,” she said.

Brother Dubya grunted acknowledgment and marched from the room, his dusty posse trailing behind. Sister Dee watched them leave, her face a mask. The Brotherhood members in the black cassocks relaxed their stances, and Cricket realized every one of them had placed their fingers on the triggers of their weapons. That with one word from this woman, every man in that crew would have been stone-cold murdered right here in front of him.

And every one of them had known it.

As the double doors slammed shut, Sister Dee finally glanced over her shoulder. Abraham was busy at his tools, his face pale, blue eyes shining and wide. She walked over, touched his chin, forced him to look at her.

“Your grandfather always said it was better to be feared than loved.”

The boy swallowed hard and nodded. “I remember.”

“Do you love me, my son?”

“…Of course I do.”

Sister Dee’s skullpaint face twisted in a gentle smile as she kissed his cheek.

“It’s all for you,” she said. “You know that, don’t you?”

“I know, Mother.” The boy nodded slowly. “I know.”

With a final glance at Cricket, Sister Dee spun on her heel and swept from the room, her black-cassocked thugs marching behind her in unison.

“Remember the paintjob,” she called over her shoulder. “And fix Solomon!”

The doors slammed shut. The light seemed to brighten, the tension flee the room. Abraham dragged his hand back through his hair, rubbed his eyes.

“I…”

Cricket’s voice faltered. Sister Dee wasn’t in the room anymore, so he could speak freely. But in the end, he still wasn’t entirely sure about this boy. He seemed a decent sort. Gentle, when all the world around him was hard and sharp as glass. But Abraham was that woman’s son, and that woman was the bloodthirsty leader of a fanatical murder cult. What kind of person might he really be?

“IS…IS SHE ALWAYS LIKE THAT?” he finally asked.

The boy glanced at the double doors, heaved a sigh. “She has to be.”

“HOW DO YOU FIGURE THAT?”

“This is a cold world, Paladin. Its leaders have to be colder. My mother’s a good person, in her heart. But when my grandfather died, it fell on her to hold the Brotherhood together. All of this, all we have, is because of her.”

Cricket wasn’t sure what to say. He’d always spoken his mind with Evie—Silas had programmed him to keep her out of trouble, to be her conscience, to never be afraid to speak up. And even though he knew he wasn’t safe here, some part of that programming was surfacing now. Truth was, he liked this kid. Liked that he didn’t want to be called master. That he referred to Cricket as “him” instead of “it.”

But still, he was part of the cult now hunting Lemon. Cricket wanted to throw his hands up in despair. They’d only been apart for two days, and somehow the girl had fallen in with a pack of deviates engaged in a war against the entire Brotherhood? And, idiot that he was, he’d placed her directly in danger.

Where was Ezekiel in all this?

What was going on?

“YOU…” Cricket faltered again, shook his head.

“You can speak freely,” Abraham said. “We’re friends now, Paladin.”

Leaving Solomon’s body on the workbench, the boy perused the salvage stacked along the workshop walls. The tall racks were filled to bursting, shelves groaning under the weight of spare parts and high-tech flotsam and regular junk.

Unknown to Cricket or Abraham, Brother War’s cigar continued to smolder under the racks where it had been slapped from his lips.

“I PRESUME YOU’RE NOT A DISCIPLE OR BROTHER OR ANYTHING,” the WarBot said. “I MEAN, YOU DON’T WEAR THE UNIFORM. YOU DON’T WEAR THE X.”

“I’m not officially a member of the order, no. I like machines. They’re easier to understand than people most days.” The boy made a small pleased noise, climbing up onto one of the more overcrowded racks. “So, Mother put me in charge of New Bethlehem’s Dome. I like it down here. People leave me alone to do what I want.”

“BUT YOU KNOW WHAT THE BROTHERHOOD DOES TO DEVIATES, RIGHT?”

“It’s not pretty,” the boy said, stretching through the junk toward a replacement circuit board. “But we wandered for years before we settled in New Bethlehem. I’ve seen what’s outside these walls. And the alternative is uglier still.”

“LEMON IS MY FRIEND. IF THEY CATCH HER…”

“I’m sorry, Paladin. If your friend is an abnorm, there’s nothing to be done.” Abraham finally grasped the board, tucking it into his coveralls as he continued. “Folks always need someone to hate. Usually someone different. If we can’t find an Other, we make one up. It’s just the way people are.”

“NOT ALL OF YOU. NOT THE ONES I’VE KNOWN.”

Abraham smiled lopsided, as if Cricket had told a joke.

“Then you’ve known better people than m—”

A loud BANG echoed at the other end of the workshop. Unseen below the racks, Brother War’s cigar had set fire to a puddle of oil, which had in turn ignited a half-empty acetylene tank. As the cylinder exploded into a brief ball of bright flame, the racks Abraham was climbing shuddered. And before Cricket knew what was happening, the entire structure popped its brackets and came away from the wall.

He saw it happening in slow motion—the boy falling backward, mouth open, eyes wide. The rack came after him, heavy steel, overloaded with engine parts, heavy servos and power units, robotic limbs. Cricket yelled, reached toward Abraham, but he was too far away. The boy would be crushed by all that weight—legs or ribs broken at best, spattered on the concrete at worst.

The boy hit the ground, gasping in pain. He flung out his hand. The air around him shivered and warped, like ripples on water. And as Cricket watched, dumbfounded, the rack was smashed back into the wall, as if by some invisible force. Spare parts and rusty steel and junk, hundreds and hundreds of kilos of it, thrown about like paper on the wind.

Abraham rolled clear as the rack rebounded, crashing to the deck with a noise like a thunderclap. The shelves broke loose, the debris scattered across the floor. The dust settled. A small fire burned merrily among the mess, smoke rising to the ceiling. And at the edge of the chaos, the boy lay on his back. He closed his eyes and cursed softly, rapping the back of his head against the concrete.

“Stupid…,” he hissed.

Not a single rusty bolt of it had touched him.

“ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?” Cricket asked, kneeling beside him.

Electric panic was rolling over the big bot in waves, the impulse of the First Law lighting up his mind. The imperative to protect humans—to do anything to safeguard them from harm—was hard-coded into the very heart of him. He felt jacked up, full of tension, bristling. But unless he was all the way glitched, that boy had just…

He moved that junk just by thinking about it.

Deviation. Abnormality. A genetic quirk of fate. Cricket knew Lemon could kill electricity with a thought. He’d heard stranger tales of deviates who could light fires just thinking on it, or even read minds. It mostly sounded like the stuff of kids’ stories, talking true. Unless you lived in a city where folks preached about the value of purity, and spoke out against the dangers of genetic abnormality every single day.

A city where only the pure prospered.

In a place like that, deviation was a death sentence.

“Shut down,” Abraham said.

“WAIT, I—”

“I’m ordering you, Paladin!” Abraham roared. “Shut! DOWN!”

“ACKNOWLEDGED,” Cricket said.

And all the world went black.

2.15 Superior

“Kill me,” Lemon said.

The Major looked up from his book, one white eyebrow raised. “Excuse me?”

“Seriously,” Lemon said, padding up the stairs. “Just ghost me right now. I honestly think it’s for the best.”

“All right,” the Major said. “But before I do you in, might I ask why?”

“I keep a list in my head, yeah?” Lemon replied, sitting on the couch opposite. “You know, a ‘Greatest Experiences of Lemon’s Life’ type deal? And after that shower…honestly, I think I’ve peaked. There’s just no point in living anymore.”

The old man laughed, the scars on the right side of his face crinkling as he leaned back in his sofa. With the fluffiest towel she’d ever touched in her life, Lemon continued drying off her hair. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she smelled of soap and shampoo instead of sweat and blood. She could still feel the deliriously warm spray of water on her skin.

“Just for future reference,” the Major said, “we try to limit showers to three minutes at a time.”

Lemon blinked. “How long was I in there?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“Sorry,” she winced. “It’s been a while.”

“Your clothes are being washed.” The Major cleared his throat. “I hope you don’t mind, but I had Fix put your socks in the incinerator.”

“Best for all concerned,” Lemon said.

“Mm-hmm,” the Major nodded. “Clothes fit okay?”

“Not exactly the bleeding edge of fashion, but yeah, thanks.”

Her new threads were the same uniform the Major and the others all wore: bulky desert camo fatigues, big stompy boots, about as flattering as an old plastic bag. Normally Lemon wouldn’t have been caught dead in them, but her own clothes had been so crusty, it was a miracle they hadn’t run away under their own power yet.

“Hungry?” The Major waved to a box of what looked to be vacuum-packed meals on the table beside the swear jar. “I’m not sure how long it’s been since—”

Lemon had a packet torn open and an entire protein bar crammed into her mouth before the old man could finish his sentence. She sat cross-legged on the floor, unwrapped another bar and took a bite, cheeks ballooning, eyes rolling back in her head as she chewed and groaned and chewed some more.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” the Major said. “I thought I’d give you the two-bit tour before bed. If you’re not too tired?”

“Cnnsuwwlggg,” Lemon mumbled.

“I beg your pardon?”

Lemon chewed some more, swallowed her mouthful with difficulty.

“Can’t stay long,” she repeated.

“That’s fine,” the Major nodded. “But if you’re not busy now…?”

Lemon shrugged, tore open another protein bar, shoved six more into her pockets. The Major stood with a wince, waved his walking stick at the walls around them. The ugly scars on his face were etched in shadow, but his blue eyes were twinkling and lively. Between the easy authority he exuded, the uniform and the limp, she figured he must’ve been a soldier in his past.

“Well, we’ve been situated here for a while now,” he explained. “It might not be a palace, but to us, it’s home. The facility is divided into three main areas. We’re currently in Section A, the habitation pod.”

Lemon tried saying something like “Mmm, very interesting,” but her mouth was crammed full of protein bar again, so all she managed was “Mmmrphhgllmng.”

“Upper levels are separate dormitories, capable of housing twenty-four people.” The Major waved to the shelves around them. “This is the common area. Books, VR reels—we’re also wired into the Megopolis feeds. As you’ve already seen, downstairs are the bathroom and shower facilities. The rest is this way.”

Leaning on his cane, the old man limped to the inner hatchway. Lemon followed, still stuffing her face. The fluoros lit up as they entered the passage, the Major leading them through to the vast open space they’d visited before. Lemon glanced at that big sealed hatchway, the big red letters:

“What’s through there?” she asked.

“Section C,” the Major said. “Although we can’t get the door open.”

She looked at the large digital control pad set beside the hatch. Panels had been pulled off the wall, she could see dark acetylene scoring and shallow dents on the metal—though they hadn’t been able to open it, it looked like the Major and his crew had given it a damn good shot.

She’d never been around tech this flash or shiny before in her life—not even in Mister C’s house. Lemon could sense static electricity dancing along her skin, and closing her eyes, she was a little astonished to realize she could feel current all around her. Slim rivers of it, flowing down the walls, beneath the floor. Through the Section C hatchway and the computers beyond.

“This is Section B,” the Major was saying, waving at the room around them. “Four floors. Around us, we have our power generators, hydrostation and the computer facilities. Top level is my office. Basement level is our gymnasium and training hub. On the floor directly below us, we have the greenhouse. Fix has something of a green thumb, he grows the plants himself. It’s self-sustaining, not quite enough to supply our little band, but close.”

“How can it be self-sustaining?” Lemon asked. “Aren’t your seeds sterile?”

“Lord no,” the Major said. “We don’t use any of that BioMaas junk. We raided a seed bank, stocked with samples from before the Fall.”

“How’d you find it?” she asked.

“The same way I found Grimm. Diesel. Fix.” A shrug. “I saw it.”

Lemon mumbled around her latest mouthful. “Swwut?”

“Everyone here has a gift, Miss Fresh. Fix can accelerate the body’s healing abilities. Diesel’s our…transportation expert.” The Major shrugged again. “I see things.”

Lemon swallowed her mouthful of protein. “You mean…like…”

“Faces. Places. I don’t rightly know why. Or how. But I’ve been able to do it since I was about your age. It only happens when I’m deep asleep. And I can’t see what will be. Only what is. But, somehow, it always turns out to be important.”

The old man knelt in front of Lemon with a wince.

“And I feel I should tell you now, Miss Fresh, that I’ve been dreaming of you.”

Ever so slowly, Lemon began backing toward the door.

“At ease,” the Major smiled. “I realize how odd it sounds. But I’ve been seeing you for a few years now. Off and on. Last time I saw you, would’ve been…maybe four days back? You were dressed in…pink. I think. You were standing by a wrecked car. Surrounded by hostile machina. And you destroyed them all with a wave of your hand.”

Lemon thought back to her battle outside Babel with the Preacher. The machina garrison from Daedalus she destroyed. The gaudy pink rad-suit she’d worn.

“How could you possibly know that?” she whispered.

“I told you. I see. When I dream. It’s called clairvoyance, if you need a technical term.” The Major tilted his head. “How does it work? Your gift, I mean? Grimm told me you knocked those Brotherhood rotor drones out of the sky with a shrug. You manipulate magnetic fields, maybe? Accelerate metal fatigue, or…?”

Lemon chewed her lip. Amazing as it was, she was slowly realizing these people were certified deviates, just like her. That somehow, Diesel could rip holes in space. Fix could heal bullet holes and radiation poisoning with a thought. And this old crusty wardog could…see things?

It was every color of insane, even if she had witnessed the evidence with her own damn eyes. But four years of hiding what she was, of living with the thought of what’d happen if people found out…

“You don’t have to be afraid anymore.” The old man squeezed her hand. “I promise you that. You don’t ever have to be afraid of what you are again.”

Lemon looked down at her boots, trying to find her voice. All the bluff and bluster she usually summoned at will seemed to have evaporated in the presence of this strange, scarred old man. Her streetface, her braveface, was nowhere to be found. But the Major simply squeezed her hand again.

“It’s all right,” he said, his voice sure and gentle. “It’s okay.”

Lemon sighed, chewed her lip.

“ ’Lectrics,” she finally mumbled.

“I beg your pardon?”

Lemon cleared her throat, spoke a little louder.

“I can fry electrics. I think about it, and the current surges and things just cook. It first happened when I was twelve in Los Diablos, this auto-peddler ate my creds and I just got mad and fried it, I didn’t even know how at the time, I’m still not very good at it, though, I can’t really control it I usually just cook everything around me and it’s easier when I’m angry but I can’t point it or aim it or anything I just sort of think about it and it’s like this static inside my head and it’s just—”

“You listen, now,” the Major said softly. “And listen close.”

Lemon bit down on the babble spilling from her mouth.

“There’s no one like you in all the world,” he said. “And you’ve been frightened far too long. People fear what’s different. People fear what they can’t control. People fear the future. And that’s what you are, Miss Fresh. The future.” The Major nodded, that pale blue stare boring into her own. “And they should be afraid of you. Because you are not alone.”

As the Major spoke, she felt his words in her bones. Looking into his eyes, she felt taller. Listening to him speak, she felt stronger. The things he said, the truth he spoke, they set Lemon tingling from the tips of her toes to the top of her head. The old man smiled at her, scars crinkling, and she found herself smiling back.

“You are not alone,” he said again.

But the sensible part of her brain, the part raised in the Scrap, brought her back down to earth. The thought of Zeke and Cricket out there somewhere without her—probably in trouble—set her heart sinking. This facility was the most amazing place she’d ever seen in her life. And she knew she couldn’t stay.

“Listen, it’s been a long few days between one thing and another,” she said. “And I don’t wanna impose or anything, but would it be all right if I crashed for a few hours before I motor?”

The Major stood up with the aid of his cane. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you like. We’ve got plenty of room. I’ll get you situated in one of the dorms.”

“Thanks,” the girl smiled.

She followed the old man back to the habitation pod, up the stairs to a neat room lined with bunk beds. The Major was still talking, but Lemon was only half listening. All the turmoil of the past few days was catching up with her, weighing down her eyelids, heavy as lead. Memories of Evie, of Mister C, of Hunter and New Bethlehem. Of blood and twisting metal and breaking glass. But more, and louder than all of it, was a single thought. Ringing in her ears as the Major wished her goodnight, closed the door and turned out the light.

Four simple words. Four enormous words. Four words she couldn’t remember ever hearing or thinking or believing before in her entire life.

You are not alone.

It was dark when Lemon opened her eyes. For a brief and terrifying moment, she couldn’t remember where she was. Back in Mister C’s old digs in Tire Valley? Curled up under some cardboard box in the warrens of Los Diablos?

Nowhere at all?

As she sat up, a small light overhead hummed and flickered into life. She found herself on clean sheets and a soft mattress. She could still smell the scent of soap in her hair. And hanging in the air, soft as its perfume, she could hear…

Music?

Lemon padded to the hatch, opened it on whispering hinges. She realized the music was coming from the living area below. Pretty notes from an instrument she didn’t know, strung together in an arrangement she’d never heard. Creeping downward, she found the lights on, Grimm seated on the circular couches. The boy was reading some old dog-eared 20C book. Its cover featured a muscular man with long golden hair and no shirt, clutching a woman who seemed to be falling out of her dress. He stashed it under a cushion as soon as Lemon appeared on the stairs.

“You saw nothing,” he growled.

“…Okay?”

He sucked his lip, looked about nervously. “Did the tunes wake you?”

Lemon shook her head, hovering uncertainly. “What is this?”

“The music?” Grimm shrugged. “Dunno. Some old dead wanker.”

“It’s…beautiful.”

“Yeah, it’s all right, innit?” His face relaxed into an easy smile. “We got piles of this stuff in digital storage. I listen sometimes while I’m on watch.”

“Sorry, am I…?”

“Nahnah.” He beckoned her over. “You’re not interrupting. We usually keep nighttime hours. Easier to stay hidden in the dark. Come in.”

Lemon padded over to the couches, the concrete cool under her bare feet. She sat on the couch opposite Grimm, sinking down into the leather. She’d never parked herself on anything as luxurious in her life.

“You feeling better?” she asked, looking at his unblemished wrists.

“Robin Hood,” he replied in his proper-fancy accent.

“…What?”

“Good,” he said. “It rhymes, yeah? Robin Hood. Good.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“How ’bout you?”

Lemon looked around her: the books, the beautiful music, the cool air and the clean clothes. She tried to find words, could barely manage a shrug.

“Bit over the top, eh?” the boy asked.

“Way over.” She nodded to the swear jar on the table. “Wassat?”

Grimm shrugged. “Fix grew up rough. Place called Paradise Falls. Don’t let the pretty hair fool you, he curses worse than anyone I ever met. The Major’s trying to break him of the habit. Every time one of us swears, we put a cap with our name on it in the jar. When it’s time to do a job no one wants, a name gets drawn out. The muddier your mouth, the more chance it’s gonna be you.”

Lemon squinted at the bottle caps. Around ninety percent had the name “Fix” written on them.

“So that’s what all the ‘funking,’ ‘forking’ stuff was about?”

Grimm shrugged. “Preferable to the flip side, believe me.”

Lemon smiled, looked around the room. The books on the walls, the artwork on the ceiling. Trying to wrap her head around it all.

“Listen,” Grimm said, leaning closer. “Sorry about the stick I gave in the car. Wouldn’t’ve given you so much barney if I knew you was one of us.”

The girl waved him off. “It’s all Robin Hood.”

He smiled, his dark eyes twinkling. But as quick as it arrived, the smile faded, his tone turning soft and serious.

“Who was your friend? The stabby lass who got ghosted?”

“…She wasn’t my friend, really,” Lemon said. “Her name was Hunter. She was…a long story.”

Grimm nodded. “Well, sorry if sorry’s wanted, yeah? Me and Deez might not be here if not for you and yours. Brotherhood are bad biz. You did good. Real good.”

“I know,” Lemon smiled. “Brilliful, remember?”

Grimm laughed, leaned back in his seat. Lemon felt a little warm inside her chest, tucked her hair behind her ear. “How long you been here?”

“Six months, maybe? Major found me just before I turned seventeen.”

“Where at?”

“Place called Jugartown.” Grimm nodded to a map hanging among the framed art on the ceiling. “Little ways to the south. Local lawmen snagged me. Brotherhood got called, Sister Dee and her Horsemen were on the way to nail me up.”

“Horsemen?”

“Yeah, it’s from the Goodbook. They were supposed to be Heralds of the ’pocalypse. Death, War, Famine, Pestilence. Sister Dee. Brother Dubya. Brother Eff, Brother Pez. Get it?”

“True fancy,” she nodded.

“Anyway, Diesel and Fix showed up, busted me loose. Been running with them and the Major ever since.”

“If the Brotherhood were going to nail you up…” Lemon chewed her lip. “I mean, what can you…?”

“Do?”

“Yeah.”

Grimm cracked his knuckles and grinned. “Observe.”

The boy held out his hand, fixed Lemon in his stare. She felt butterflies in her stomach under his gaze, realizing for the first time how handsome he was. Broad shoulders and a strong jaw, deep brown skin. The uniform they’d given her was several sizes too big, and she’d gone to bed wearing only the T-shirt. She was conscious of her bare legs now, curling them up under her on the couch.

And then, she started feeling cold.

Her skin prickled, she shivered. It began slow, then cascaded, the temperature around her seemed to plummet. She was suddenly aware of what the chill was doing to her body, and she folded her arms over her chest. As she exhaled, her breath emerged as frost, hanging in the air before her.

“Holy crap,” she whispered.

“Not the best part, love,” Grimm smiled.

He focused on the mug of caff on the table in front of him. And as he curled his fingers, brow creased in concentration, Lemon saw steam begin to rise off the liquid’s surface. Her breath caught in her lungs as she saw the liquid ripple, bubble and, finally, begin to boil.

“You control…heat?”

“Energy,” the boy said. He took a deep breath, blinked hard. The caff stopped boiling, the temperature around Lemon’s body slowly returning to normal. “I can move it. Refocus it. Concentrate it. That’s all heat is really, just radiant energy.”

She blinked hard, incredulous. “How long have you been able to do it?”

“Since I was fourteen or so? Most freaks tend to manifest when we hit puberty.” He gave a soft chuckle. “Bit cruel when you think about it. Bad enough dealing with the acne without learning you can set things on fire with your brain.”

“That’s…” Lemon shook her head, looking at the radiation symbol shaved into his hair. “I mean, I’d heard stories about other people who could do what I do, but I never knew…”

“You control ’lectrics, yeah? Overload ’em?”

She nodded, licking her lip. “Yeah. But it’s kinda hard to control sometimes. Works best when I’m angry.”

“Mental note: do not get Lemon angry,” Grimm smiled.

She smiled weakly in return.

“What about Diesel? Did I imagine her…ripping…”

“She calls it Rifting,” Grimm said. “It’s like…imagine she can make two holes in space. Each connected, yeah? They can only be laid flat, each about as big as a car. And she can only create them in places she can actually see, so she can’t go through walls or anything. But you jump through one, fall out the other, like you would any other hole. Just hope she doesn’t close them on you halfway through.”

Lemon pushed her knuckles into her eyes, shook her head again. She felt like her brains were slowly dribbling out her ears.

“You all right?” Grimm asked. “Want a drink?”

“Sorry. It’s just…amazing, is all.”

“Yeah.” The boy grimaced. “Try selling that to Sister Dee and her bastards.”

“We had the Brotherhood in Los Diablos, too,” Lemon said quietly. “I spent most of my sproghood dodging them. The guy running them was named the Iron Bishop. Bad news. But he wasn’t as…scary as that Dee lady.”

“I believe it,” Grimm said. “Brotherhood got started ages ago by a bloke called Saint Michael. But he got ended a while back, and his daughter took over the whole show. Sister Dee made her dad into a martyr, and used his murder to grow the Brotherhood into a bloody army. I hear they’ve even got a chapel in Megopolis now. Dunno how many of us she and her Horsemen have ghosted. We try and disrupt operations when we can. Hit the tankers of H₂O they sell to other settlements—that’s what me and Deez were doing when we got sprung. The Major’s been fighting a guerilla war against them for years.”

“So what’s his program?” Lemon asked. “The Major?”

Grimm shrugged. “He was military, back before War 3.0. Stationed in this very facility. After the Fall, he worked as a Corp-side freelancer for a while. He was in a bad barney, though, his whole unit got wiped out by scavvers, and he got left for dead in Plastic Alley. And that’s when Fix found him. The old bugger thought he’d always been alone, but after realizing there was more of us with gifts, he started our little freak show. He says he knew he had to do something to protect the future.”

Lemon blinked. “What future?”

“Future of the species, of course,” Grimm said.

Lemon just frowned, and the boy pointed to one of the framed pieces of art on the ceiling above. It showed six figures in profile, walking in a row. On the far left was a small furry animal Lemon recognized from a history virtch as a monkey. The next figure was a taller monkey, walking on two legs. The third looked like a small man with a heavy brow, and so it went, down the line. The last figure was just a regular dustneck with no clothes on, labeled HOMO SAPIENS.

“You ever heard of Darwin?” Grimm asked.

Lemon shook her head.

“He was this old geezer,” Grimm explained. “Before the Fall. Wrote a book that turned the world upside down. Said how animals and plants ’n’ that are always changing in reaction to the world around ’em, yeah? And the ones that change the best, do the best, and pass on their changes to their kids.”

“Okay.” Lemon shrugged. “So?”

“So that’s us. We’re the change. The next step in the chain. Homo superior.”

Lemon raised one eyebrow. “Rrrrrrright.”

“Look, it’s hard to explain. The geezer did it better.”

Grimm rolled off the couch, walked to the bookshelf. Lemon sucked on her lip and tried very hard not to notice how well those pants of his fit, or study the way the muscles in his arm moved as he reached up to the shelf. He pulled down an old tome that looked like it had been through several armed conflicts and at least one serious food fight, and tossed it into her lap.

“On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Annotated Version.” Lemon blinked up at Grimm. “You want me to read this whole thing?”

“Got a problem with reading?”

Lemon raised her hands to her eyes and hissed. “It burns usssss.”

Grimm laughed. “How old are you?”

“Dunno, really. Best guess is fifteen or sixteen. But it’s just a guess. I got left outside a pub in LD as a sprog. The only thing my parents gave me was—”

Lemon frowned, reaching up to her neck and suddenly realizing…

“My clover’s missing.”

She stood, heart in her throat.

“My clover’s missing!” she cried.

“Take it easy,” Grimm said. “It’s all ri—”

“No, it’s not all right!” Lemon said, voice rising. “Do you know the crap I had to go through to hold on to that thing all these years? Do you know how hard it was not to hock it or lose it or have it snaffled by some damn gutter sprog? It’s not all fuc…”

Her voice trailed off as Grimm reached into his pocket, produced a thin black choker set with a small silver five-leafed clover.

“Fix found it in the truck,” he said. “I remember seein’ it round your n—”

Lemon snatched the trinket from the boy’s hand, checked that it was still in one piece. The choker was snapped, but the charm itself seemed unharmed, and Lemon squeezed it tight in her fist, feeling her heart thump in her chest.

Grimm sat back on the couch looking abashed, and Lemon felt suddenly embarrassed. These people had shown her welcome in a world where most folks only showed you the barrel of a gun. She bit her lip, tucked her hair back behind her ear again.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” she said. “For yelling and stuff.”

“S’aright,” he murmured.

“No, it’s not. It’s just…” Lemon ran her thumb across the charm, pursing her lips. “Just…my folks dumped me when I was little, yeah? They didn’t leave a note. They didn’t even give me a name. All they left me with was this.”

“I get it.” The boy smiled gently. “I do.”

Lemon stood awkwardly in the silence, finally looked in the direction of the bathroom. “So, um, I’m gonna go avail myself of these lovely facilities, and then maybe try to get some zees. Nice talking to you, Grimm.”

Grimm pointed to the book. “Have a gander. It’s worth your time, trust me.”

“Nice of you and all, but I’ve gotta motor tomorrow.”

“Got someplace to be?”

“Friends who need me. Rule Number One in the Scrap.”

Grimm blinked, obviously confused.

“Stronger together,” Lemon explained. “Together forever.”

“Take the book,” Grimm said. “Might change your mind about staying.”

“It won’t.”

Grimm stood and walked around the table until he was standing in front of her. This close, Lemon could feel the warmth off his body, see the dozen different shades of brown in those bottomless eyes of his. He was tall and he was strong and he was fine. She felt the silly urge to look away, reaching for her braveface and staring him down instead.

He held up the book between them. “Trust me.”

“Look, I’m sure it’s real interesting and all,” she said. “But where I come from, you stick by your friends.”

“I respect that,” the boy nodded. “But see, we’re more than your friends.”

He pressed the book into her hand.

“We’re your people.”

She stayed up all day. Tired beyond sleeping, too wired to crash. Hunched over that old beaten book and chewing on a lock of cherry-red hair. Her eyes were wide, she felt utterly exhausted. But more, she felt…awake.

A gentle knock came at her door, the handle turned slowly and Grimm poked his head around the frame, a tray of steaming food in hand.

“Thought you might want some ch…”

The boy’s voice trailed off as he saw Lemon sitting in bed, book in her lap.

“Have you been up all day reading?” he asked.

Lemon blinked up at him, as if noticing he was there for the first time. She could feel tears shining in her eyes.

She closed the cover.

Heaved a sigh.

“Holy shit,” she breathed.

2.16 Falls

“This is a bad plan, Snowflake.”

“Shut up.”

“Look, I know bein’ mean is just how you show affection and all,” the Preacher whispered. “But you keep this up, you’re liable to hurt my feelings.”

“Shut up!” Ezekiel hissed.

The lifelike and the bounty hunter were crouched in an alleyway among the garbage and unconscious ethylheads, looking out onto the dirty street. Eve, Gabriel and the others were making their way through the crowded thoroughfares of Paradise Falls, heading toward the heart of the settlement. Ezekiel trailed his siblings at a good safe distance, the Preacher once more strapped to his back

It’d only been a few days since Zeke had seen Gabriel and Faith, but laying eyes on Uriel, Patience and Verity again had rocked him all the way back on his dusty heels. The last time they’d all been together was the day of the revolt. The day they’d murdered the Monrovas and fallen from grace. The day his brothers and sisters had bolted that metal coin slot into his chest.

They’d called him puppet. Toy. Traitor. Slave. And together, they’d thrown him off that glittering, blood-soaked tower, and left him for the wastes.

He ran his fingers over the metal still embedded in his skin. He could’ve torn it out at any time he’d wanted—a moment’s pain, a few day’s healing and there’d be nothing to show for it. But he’d kept it through all the years. To remind himself of what they’d done. What he’d lost. What he’d chosen to be.

Out of loyalty.

Out of love.

Eve.

He knew that this was her choice. But the sight of her walking beside the others made his chest hurt. His stomach sink. She’d told him that she wanted to learn who she was, that he wasn’t going to be the one to teach her.

But Gabriel and the others were?

He could feel two girls, two memories, at war again in his head. The Ana he knew would never have thrown in with the killers who’d murdered her family. The Ana he knew was gentle and kind, in love with the world, and she’d showed him the beauty it could hold, even as ugly and bleak as it was. Seeing Eve drifting down the street, dark cloak billowing about her, drawing her hood up over that face he’d memorized, line by line, curve by curve, he was suddenly aware of how different she was from the person he wanted her to be.

But do you still love her?

“So riddle me this, Snowflake,” came a voice at his back.

Ezekiel jangled the wire connected to the grenades on the Preacher’s back.

“If I have to tell you to shut up again,” he whispered, “I’m going to pull the pins on my insurance policy and let your Lord sort you out.”

“Yeah, nah, you ain’t gonna do that,” the Preacher said. “So here’s the thing: You’re obviously boots over bonnet with lil’ Miss Carpenter here, I get that. And she obviously don’t feel the same way, or else we wouldn’t be sneaking around after her like the world’s two shittiest ninjas. But what I’m wonderin’ is, what the hell’s she doin’ hangin’ around with more of your special snowflake brothers and sisters?”

Ezekiel said nothing, watching the lifelikes stalk on through the crowd.

“I mean, that’s what they all are, right?” the Preacher asked. “100-Series? Too pretty to be anything but. Why’s a deviate hangin’ with the likes of them? And come to think of it, why’re you keepin’ me around, now you found the girl you’re lookin’ for? Safest play here is to just ghost me and be done.”

The bounty hunter was talking every kind of sense. Of course, much as he wanted to, Ezekiel couldn’t just dump him into Plastic Alley—the Preacher was the only person Zeke knew with a blitzhund, and a cybernetic dog that could track you by a single particle of your DNA over thousands of kilometers was the only way Zeke knew of to find Lemon again. Trouble was, he didn’t want the Preacher to know that.

“What do you see in this girl, anyways?” the bounty hunter asked.

Ezekiel glanced over his shoulder, incredulous. “You’re honestly asking me about my love life here? How much of that whiskey did you drink?”

“Mmmmaybe half a bottle or so.”

“And you think now is a good time to start quizzing me on Eve?”

“Well, since you’re about to drop us into a dozen kinds of messy because of her, I figured it might be time to discuss the lassie in question, yeah. If she don’t love you back, is she really worth getting killed over? Seems a mite childish, don’t you think?”

“Childish?” Ezekiel hissed.

“Yeah,” the Preacher nodded. “All sniffin’ around her heels like a lovesick puppy dog. Affection’s a two-way street, son. Anything else is just obsession.”

“Look…just…,” Ezekiel sputtered, lost for words. “Just shut up, will you?”

“Yeah, I’ll shut up,” the Preacher sighed.

The bounty hunter lowered his voice to a mutter.

“When you grow up.”

It seemed like the Preacher was trying to goad him, but Ezekiel just didn’t have the time to fence words right now. This wasn’t about the way he felt for Eve at all—this was about what Gabriel and the others were doing in Paradise Falls, and why on earth Eve was with them. Maybe they were forcing her to tag along somehow? Tricking her? From the glimpses he’d caught of her, it looked like Eve had removed Silas’s Memdrive from her head entirely—maybe Gabriel was preying on some broken memory, or Uriel on some twisted truth?

Whatever the reason, he was going to find out just what on earth was going on here. And so, doing his best to ignore the Preacher’s barbs, Zeke drifted out into the crush, following his brothers and sisters like a shadow.

He watched them weave and flow through the sea of grubby people, never touching them, ever apart. Looking ahead, he realized they were headed directly for the old GnosisLabs spire on the north side of the settlement. The Gnosis logos were covered in graffiti scrawl or torn from the walls, but the building still reminded him of Babel: a tall double-helix spiral, looming near the edge of the fall down into Plastic Alley, and the great swamp of discarded polys filling the chasm below.

“Why are they headed in there?” he whispered to himself.

“I take it that’s a rhetorical question,” the Preacher growled.

Ezekiel’s mind was spinning through the possibles, and a soft, sinking feeling was filling his gut. Looking down at his right arm, he saw his tissue regeneration was almost complete—there was a small hand at the end of his stump now, five fingers that could curl and clutch. But there were five of his siblings here, six if you counted Eve, and only one of him. And whatever Gabriel and the others were up to, Ezekiel was certain they wouldn’t take kindly to being interrupted.

But I have to know.

Adrenaline tingling in his fingertips, he ducked into another alleyway. Watched as the lifelikes marched slowly up to the Gnosis building, moving like ghosts, all in black. He could see half a dozen members of the KillKillDolls standing loose guard outside the Gnosis spire, jawing and smoking and not expecting any kind of trouble. Ezekiel watched as Eve walked up to the biggest of them, exchanged a few brief words, lost on the wind.

The ganger shook his head, pointed back to the street. Eve motioned toward the spire. The big man put his hand on her chest, gave her a hard shove backward. Ezekiel saw a flash of fire in her eyes, her face twisting in sudden anger. And quick as silver, Eve grabbed the ganger by the wrist, and drawing back her free hand, she punched him full in the face.

Ezekiel could see the rage in that blow. The pent-up fury and frustration of the past few days, the lies she’d been told, the heartbreak she’d suffered, all crystallized in the tight ball of her fist. She threw the punch as hard as she could, twisting her hips, teeth gritted, putting all her weight behind it. And if Eve were a normal girl, the KillKillDoll might have ended up with a split lip or a swollen eye, or if her aim was good enough, maybe even a broken nose.

Instead, he was lifted off his feet like he’d been hit with a truck. His head snapped all the way back between his shoulder blades, and Ezekiel heard a sodden crunch as the man was sent flying, crashing into the wall behind him hard enough to smash the concrete to gray dust. The ganger’s body crumpled to the ground, bleeding from the ears and eyes, his head lolling atop his broken neck.

Oh god…

A moment’s shock. A ragged cry. The KillKillDolls raised their weapons. And fast as the beats of a blowfly’s wings, the other lifelikes drew pistols from beneath those dusty cloaks and gunned down the gangers in seconds.

A scream went up from the crowd, folks scattering as the bullets sang beneath the noonday sun. Patience fired a dozen shots into the air above the mob’s head, sending them scattering, tripping, tumbling. A handful of bullyboys emerged from the Gnosis spire to see what the fuss was, dropped in a few heartbeats by the lifelike’s bullets. But through it all, Ezekiel’s eyes were fixed on Eve.

She stood there in the middle of the carnage. Her right hand was still curled into a white-knuckled fist. Her eyes were fixed on the man she’d struck down. She wore the strangest expression—somewhere between horror and joy, shock and awe. As if she couldn’t quite believe that…she killed him.

More gunfire. Figures falling in the crowd as the lifelikes continued to shoot, until the street was entirely empty save for the people who’d never leave it again.

She actually killed him….

“Remind me what you see in this girl, again?” the Preacher asked.

Ezekiel said nothing. Uriel spoke to Eve, and the girl seemed to remember herself. Looking down at her hand, she opened her fingers, peered at the blood gleaming on her knuckles. Turning her hand this way and that, as if studying the sunlight glinting in the red. And finally, with one last glance at the man she’d just murdered, Eve spun on her heel and strode into the spire as if nothing were amiss.

Gabriel and the others followed her inside, only bodies in their wake.

Ezekiel couldn’t comprehend it. Couldn’t process what he’d just seen, or believe Eve was the one to have done it.

She just killed a man in cold blood.

Something must have happened to her, he reasoned. They must have done something to her. Myriad, maybe, or the Libertas virus, he had no idea what. But he knew the girl he loved could never hurt someone like that. He had to get to the bottom of this. He had to save her, the way he couldn’t save Ana all those years ago. And so, gritting his teeth, Ezekiel stole out from the alley, past the shell-shocked citizens, toward the old Gnosis spire.

“Snowflake.”

“Shut up.”

“Goddammit, boy,” the bounty hunter growled. “A bleedin’ heart can only bleed so long before it kills you. Will you stop and listen for one goddamn second?”

Ezekiel crouched behind the shell of an old auto, listening to the sound of faint gunfire and screams coming from inside the spire.

“Spit it out, then,” he hissed.

“I can’t help but notice we seem to be charging face-first toward a fracas with half a dozen superhumans with a fondness for murderin’ anything that looks at them cross-eyed. I hope you appreciate I’m wastin’ exactly zero time trying to talk you out of this nonsense, but I’m thinkin’ you might be needin’ my help.”

“You’ve got no legs,” Ezekiel said. “Your augs are all fried.”

The Preacher wiggled the fingers on his good hand. “Still got some meat on my bones, Snowflake. Just need something to shoot with.”

“I’m not giving you a gun,” Zeke scoffed. “You think I’m stupid?”

“…You honestly want me to answer that?”

Ezekiel shook his head, rose up from cover, ready to run.

“Look, look, I still got a bounty to collect on that missy,” the Preacher said. “And while theoretically, givin’ me a shooter could result in my blowing your so-called brains out of your oh-so-pretty head, how exactly does that help me? I got one working limb, here. Am I gonna bring her in walkin’ on my fingertips?”

Ezekiel said nothing, eyes still fixed on the ganger Eve had just murdered.

God, what have they done to her?

“Face it, Snowflake,” the Preacher was saying. “We need each other.”

Zeke grit his teeth. The thing of it was, he knew the Preacher was talking sense. Arming this lunatic was every kind of stupid, but fighting five against one was stupider still. And if he was going to help Eve now—and god knew she needed it—he’d need all the allies he could get.

Reaching into his weapons satchel, he drew out a heavy pistol, slapped it into the Preacher’s palm. He wiggled his middle finger, the wire connected to the grenades still strapped on the bounty hunter’s back.

“Just a reminder. Insurance policy.”

“You got a real distrusting nature, you know that?”

Ezekiel shouldered the satchel again, checked the straps holding the Preacher in place were tight. The man’s useless cyberarm was draped over Zeke’s shoulder, his good hand clutching his pistol.

“Okay, you ready?” Zeke asked.

“No, wait…hold this a second….”

Ezekiel took the pistol back as the Preacher reached inside his coat, produced the bottle of whiskey they’d bought at Rosie’s. The lifelike heaved a weary sigh as the bounty hunter took a long pull, then smashed the bottle on the sidewalk.

“Okay, ready,” he nodded.

“You sure?” Zeke growled. “Don’t want to stop for another bottle?”

“I mean, I wouldn’t say no,” the Preacher replied.

Sirens began blaring across the street as Ezekiel dashed toward the Gnosis spire, dark curls hanging in his eyes. Alarm bells were ringing, too, distant shouts—whatever passed for the Law in this hole was on its way. Ezekiel leapt over the fallen bodies, trying not to stare at the man Eve had killed. Trying not to think of her parting words to him in Babel.

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

The pair stole inside the spire, dead bodies scattered about the foyer like fallen leaves. The walls were covered in gang tags, the floors with blood. Zeke saw spent shell casings, red footprints leading to an auxiliary stairwell.

“Any clue what these friends of yours are up to in here, Snowflake?”

Ezekiel swallowed hard, refusing to answer. But truth told, the more he pondered it, he could think of only one reason why his siblings would be breaking into an old Gnosis facility. Only one reason why Gabriel and Uriel would be digging up the graves of the past.

Ana.

He’d searched for her himself. Two years spent roaming the wastes of the Yousay. But as far as he knew, Ana had got out of Babel with Silas after the revolt. Ezekiel had been looking for a walking, talking, breathing girl. He’d never thought to look in a place like this….

What if she’s here?

What if they find her?

Ezekiel stole down the stairwell, palms sweating on his pistol grip. They reached the lowest level, flickering fluorescent light, bloody footprints on the floor. These lower levels looked disused—puddles from leaking pipes, scattered trash, stale air. A solid steel door was set in the wall, slightly ajar. An electronic keypad glowed faintly beside it, filmed in dust. There was a small speaker for voiceprint ID. A lens for retinal scan. And there on the keypad, Zeke saw bloody prints, made by a girl’s fingertips. Fingertips that had given him goose bumps as they ran over the muscles on his chest, down the valley of his spine, over the curve of his lips.

Eve.

She’s…helping them?

He heard sirens upstairs, the sound of heavy boots.

“Company coming,” the Preacher muttered.

Ezekiel stole in through the open doorway. The room beyond was lit with red fluorescent strips running along the floor. Even if the rest of the building’s grid was offline, it made sense that Nicholas Monrova would keep an emergency system in place. Especially if he was keeping his baby daughter down here.

Ezekiel shook his head, sickened by the madness of it all. He’d been close to Monrova. But he’d never quite grasped how deeply the attack on his precious Ana had wounded the man. The insanity it had driven him to. The Nicholas Monrova he’d known had been a visionary. A genius. A father. But the man who’d concocted Libertas, who’d built a replacement child and kept the still-breathing remains of his real one in a place like this…

And now Eve had led Gabriel and Uriel here.

What would possess her to do that?

He crept on through the dark, through another large hatchway marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Another scanner, another keypad, opened with bloody fingertips. Ana had been her father’s favorite child, and Eve knew everything Ana did. Her lifelike body could fool the retina and voice ident safeguards, and apparently, she knew enough to guess Monrova’s passcodes. If Ana was in here, the only thing that stood between her and Gabriel…

…was him.

The hatch opened into another chamber, lit with red fluorescence. The space was long and wide, set with pillars of dark metal, fat pipelines snaking across the floor and up into the ceiling. At the far end of the room, Zeke could see a broad, hexagonal door, standing open. As he stole into the chamber and hunkered down behind a bank of old computer equipment, he heard voices from the room beyond. Voices he knew as well as his own. Tinged with anger.

Accusation.

Venom.

“Nothing,” Uriel said.

“I told you,” Patience spat. “This is pointless.”

Ezekiel breathed a small sigh. After all the carnage upstairs, all the murder and blood, Ana wasn’t here. He didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved.

“This isn’t pointless,” Ezekiel heard Gabriel snap. “There’s only so many places Monrova could have hidden her. We keep looking, we will find her.”

“Then you can finally play at happy families with the other roaches, Gabe,” Verity said. “Won’t that be wonderful?”

“Leave him alone, Verity,” Faith replied.

“Ever quick to leap to our lovesick brother’s rescue,” Verity sneered. “Is that why you stayed with him in Babel all those years? Hoping for sloppy seconds?”

“I tire of your mockery, little sister,” Gabriel replied.

“And I tire of dragging myself all over the map for the sake of your pathetic human frailties, brother. I hope you know that gleaning the key to Libertas is the only reason I agreed to this idiotic treasure hunt.”

“I swear,” Uriel sighed. “You’re like a pack of squalling children.”

Ezekiel found his lips curling in a grim smile despite himself. It was true. They were like children. Their maker had given them all of a human’s capacity for emotion, and yet only a few years to learn how to deal with it. He’d struggled with it himself over the years. The volume of it. The feelings he had no real way to control. But he’d had thoughts of Ana to keep him anchored, memories of her touch to keep him sane. What did his brothers and sisters have to hold on to?

Gabriel was obsessed with resurrecting Grace.

Uriel was obsessed with destroying humanity.

Faith was obsessed with Gabriel.

All of them, compelled to run like mice on a wheel.

Were all of them mad?

Or at least, doomed to madness?

Am I?

The lifelikes fell to squabbling, their voices rising in a tumble of accusations and insults. But Ezekiel’s heart skipped a beat as a voice rose up over them.

“Stop it, all of you!” Eve snapped. “We’re wasting time arguing. We have other places to search, let’s just get the hell on with it, yeah?”

The other lifelikes fell silent. Zeke blinked in the darkness.

Were they following her lead?

Rather than being some dupe or unwilling accomplice…was Eve calling the shots here?

Ezekiel heard heavy boots, whispered voices coming down the stairs—the incoming posse of KillKillDolls. Hunkering down behind the computer terminals, Zeke realized his siblings had heard them, too, their voices falling silent. He wanted to call out, warn the incoming men that they had no idea what they were going up against. That anyone who set foot inside this chamber was as good as dead.

“Stay frosty, Snowflake,” the Preacher murmured in his ear, as if reading his thoughts. “In case you missed it, we’re the meat in the sandwich down here.”

Zeke saw figures moving by the doorway—a posse of KillKillDolls riled up and armed to the teeth. At some hidden signal, they charged into the room, weapons raised. Faith emerged from the octagonal door, her trusty arc-blade in hand. And as the KillKillDolls raised their guns, started to fire, Faith began to move.

Ezekiel couldn’t help but admire it, horrific as it was. His sister dashed through the gunfire, a sizzling arc of current dancing along her sword. Her gray eyes were narrowed, dark bangs swept back by her sprint. She danced between the pillars, slipped among the KillKillDolls and started carving them to pieces. Uriel and Verity emerged from the hatch with pistols in hand, blasting away more for the fun of it than the necessity. Muzzle flashes lit the gloom like strobe lights, catching Faith in freeze-frame every few milliseconds.

Her blade buried in one man’s chest

ducking low and

cutting through an armored thigh

spinning, her arm drawn back

slicing

red.

Inside a minute, the posse was in pieces. Faith was breathing hard, a bullet in her belly, another in her shoulder. Her face was a mask, painted scarlet. Ezekiel could remember walking with her in Babel a few days after they’d been born. Sunlight glittering in her gray eyes as she looked out on the world in wonder.

“It’s so beautiful,” she’d whispered, fingers to her lips.

Eve emerged from the hatchway, face underscored in the garish red light. Zeke could see she’d definitely torn her cybernetic eye out, as well as the Memdrive. His heart ached at the sight of her, reminding him more than ever of the girl he loved.

She’s beautiful.

“Well, now,” the Preacher murmured. “Ain’t that interesting…”

“Let’s jet before more of these idiots decide to kill themselves,” Eve said, surveying the carnage. “There was a Gnosis outpost about a hundred kilometers northwest of here. In the flex-wing we can be there in an hour.”

“And if there’s nothing there, either?” Uriel asked.

“Jugartown and New B—”

Gunshots rang out, three in a row. Eve fell backward with a cry, a hole in her belly, another in her arm. A member of the KillKillDolls was lying on the grille in a puddle of his own blood, shooting wildly. Despite the gaping wound Faith had sliced into his gut, he continued cracking off shots, clip running dry, bloody hands reaching for another.

Faith moved like lightning, stomping on the man’s pistol hand, drawing back her sizzling arc-blade for the kill.

“S-stop!”

Faith paused, looking back over her shoulder. Eve was trying to rise, fingers pressed to her bloody belly, red dripping from her lips. Throwing off Gabriel’s helping hand, she clawed her way to her feet, leaning on a pillar for support.

“L-leave him,” she said.

Faith backed off as Eve limped across the room, dripping blood. Ezekiel heard the Preacher’s soft intake of breath, watching the girl’s wounds slowly knit closed. Zeke’s heart was hammering as Eve staggered over to the wounded KillKillDoll, seized hold of his jacket. She licked the blood from her teeth, wincing in pain. And with one hand, she hauled the man up into the air, slammed him against the wall.

“I learned…t-two secrets…a few days ago,” she wheezed.

The ganger was wide-eyed as she pinned him in place. His hands locked around Eve’s wrist as she took hold of his throat.

“One secret was b-big. The other…small. Wanna hear them?”

The other lifelikes watched as Eve began to squeeze. The ganger kicked and flailed, but her strength was too much—enough to hold him still with one hand. Faith was grinning, a murderous gleam in her eye. Uriel, too, seemed to swell with dark delight, watching Eve torment this poor bastard.

“I learned m-my father wasn’t my father,” she said, voice growing stronger. “My mind wasn’t my mind and my life w-wasn’t my life. I learned…the people I l-loved didn’t love me at all. And everything I believed was a lie.”

The ganger was choking, convulsing. Eve’s eyes were fixed on his as she relaxed her grip just enough for him to drag in one shuddering breath.

Like a cat playing with a mouse.

Like a boy burning ants with a magnifying glass.

“But that wasn’t the b-big secret,” she whispered. “Little, little man.”

The ganger’s helpless gurgles were echoing in Ezekiel’s head. He tried to shut them out as the Preacher growled in his ear to hold still. The Three Laws weren’t hard-coded into his mind anymore—he didn’t have to help a human in distress. And it’d be insane to reveal himself here, six versus two. But still…

But still…

Eve leaned in close, until the pair were face to face. The muscles in her arm were stretched taut, tendons corded at her jaw.

“The big secret is this….”

Eve ran one hand over the ganger’s leather jacket, the severed plastic heads and sightless plastic eyes. And moving so smoothly it almost seemed in slow motion, the girl pushed her fingers straight through the man’s chest

and tore his heart

right out

through

his

ribs.

“When you’ve lost everything,” she whispered, “you’re free to do anything.”

“Stop!”

Preacher groaned as Ezekiel rose up from cover, pistol switching between Faith, Gabriel, Uriel. His eyes were locked on Eve’s, his voice trembling.

“Eve, stop,” he pleaded.

“Ezekiel?”

Confusion twisted Eve’s face—confusion at seeing him, Preacher on his back. Questions of how and why flickered in her hazel eyes. She dropped the dead ganger, drenched to the wrist in red, his heart still clenched in her fist.

“Eve, this isn’t you,” Ezekiel said. “This isn’t anything like you. I don’t know what’s happening to you, but we can work this out. Just come with me. Come away with me, okay? I know you’re hurting, but we can make this all right.”

“Jesus, Lord in heaven,” the Preacher mumbled. Training his pistol on Faith, the man called out to the lifelikes. “Just for the record, I’m an unwilling passenger in this here attack of idiocy. And all things being equal, I’d rather be back at Miss Rosie’s.”

“Ezekiel,” Uriel smiled. “You’re looking well.”

Ezekiel ignored his brother, noted the rest of his siblings were fanning out around him. Instinct for self-preservation took over, and he started backing toward the chamber door. But his eyes were still fixed on Eve’s, desperate hope almost strangling his voice.

“Please, Eve,” he begged. “Come with me. I know you. I know the person you used to be. The Ana I knew didn’t have a malicious bone in her body. She’d never hurt anyone. Lemon’s in trouble, and the Eve I knew would never abandon her. This isn’t you. This isn’t you.”

Eve looked down at her bloody right hand.

Up into Ezekiel’s eyes.

“That’s the whole point,” she whispered.

The lifelikes opened fire, Ezekiel shooting back, crying out as a shell struck his shoulder, another his thigh. Verity fell with a bullet in her gut, Patience and Faith charging toward him. His speed was superhuman, his mind a machine. But they were just as fast, just as fearsome, and he knew how this had to end. He called out to Eve one last time, looking at that face he knew as well as his own.

Searching her eyes for the girl he loved.

A glimmer?

A spark?

He turned and ran, out through the hatches, barreling up the stairs. The Preacher leaned backward, muzzle flashes lighting the dark as he fired until his clip ran dry. Too busy running to shoot, Ezekiel tossed his pistol over his shoulder and the bounty hunter snatched it from the air, continued firing without missing a beat.

“Well, this is less than entertainin’!” the Preacher roared over the gunfire.

Ezekiel charged out into the foyer, almost slipping on the bloody floor. Through the window, he could see the street beyond was deserted, no help, no escape. Cursing, he reached backward, and with superhuman strength, ripped the bandolier off the Preacher’s coat. He tugged hard on the wire for his insurance policy, rewarded with sharp metallic pings as the pins in the grenades popped free.

Patience burst from the stairwell, teeth bared. And with a soft plea for forgiveness, he slung the bandolier at his sister’s chest.

The explosion bloomed bright, shattering Patience like glass. Fire and smoke, a deafening boom, Ezekiel not even pausing to watch her fall. Faith emerged from the smoke with a scream, bullets whizzing past his head as Uriel emerged close behind. The windows ahead of him splintered in the spray of gunfire, Ezekiel shielding his eyes as he leapt through it, the glass blasting outward in a glittering hail.

Empty street. No time to hot-wire an auto. Weight on his shoulders, bullet in his leg. No way to outrun them. Nowhere to run, anyway.

“You planning on flyin’ on out of here?” the Preacher hollered.

Fly…

Ezekiel broke left, dashing toward the ragged cliff edge, the drop down into Plastic Alley. Feet pounding the broken concrete. Gasping as another bullet struck his arm. Blood on his skin. Sweat in his eyes. The drop looming before them.

“Um, Snowflake?” the Preacher growled.

Ten meters away now. Howling wind and a weightless fall and a swamp of plastic sludge a long, long way below.

Lungs burning.

Five meters.

Wounds screaming.

Three.

Bullets whizzing past his head.

One.

“Snowflaaaaake!” the Preacher roared.

Flight.

2.17 Legacy

The sky burned dark red as it fell toward sunset. Lemon was seated on a rocky outcrop, scoffing a slice of…well, she couldn’t remember what it was called, but it was sweet and sticky and about the most delicious thing she’d ever chowed down on in her life. It was the fourth piece of genuine fruit she’d ever eaten, in fact. The first three were already sitting comfortably in her stomach.

She’d managed to catch a few hours’ sleep, decided it was too hot to bail until night fell. Her mind was awash with the things she’d read during the day—the concepts of genetic mutation, natural selection, evolution. Looking around her, she could see the truth of it. She’d lived every day of her life in a world where only the strong survived.

She just never imagined she might be one of them.

Homo superior.

Lemon heard footsteps, coming close. She looked up to see the big boy, Fix, walking across the dirt in bulky camo pants and a T-shirt that was on the nice side of tight. Those wonderful green eyes of his were covered by his goggles, and he was carrying an assault rifle almost as big as she was. He stopped in front of her, patted his perfect quiff to make sure all was in place. She wasn’t sure how he made it stand up like that. Some kind of industrial glue, maybe.

“Major wants to see y’all,” he said.

“What for?” she asked.

“I look like a personal assistant to you, Shorty? Whyn’t you come along and find out? And what the funk you doin’ out here, anyways? Can’t just sit around in the open during wartime.”

“Um, nobody told me that.”

“Well, I’m tellin’ you now. Let’s funkin’ move.”

The big boy hefted his rifle, waiting expectantly. Lemon sighed and climbed down off her rock, rubbing her sticky hands against her uniform pants. She followed Fix across the sand, stomping back down into Miss O’s.

“How long have you lived here?” she asked as they descended the stairs.

“Goin’ on about four years now,” Fix replied.

“Grimm said you rescued the Major from a wreck?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he nodded. “I was the first of us he recruited to the fight. Diesel joined us about a year later. Then Grimm after that.”

“So he’s only found three of you in all that time?”

“Wellll, he’s found a couple more. Problem is, funkin’ Brotherhood tend to find ’em first. There ain’t many of us to begin with. And most freaks don’t get the gift like us. They just get birthed with six fingers or an extra nostril or some such.”

“And the Brotherhood nail them up anyway.”

He glanced over his shoulder, quirked his eyebrow. “Only the strong survive, Shorty. Be grateful you got what you got.”

They reached the entry level, and Lemon looked the big boy up and down. Fix was gruff, tough, scary big. But she remembered how gently he’d cradled Diesel in the garden downstairs, the relief in his eyes when she’d opened hers. He was named for what he did—fix things, not destroy them—and that struck her as a pretty fizzy talent to be known for. Besides, nobody who spent as much effort on his hair as this kid did could be pure evil. Where would he find the time?

“Hey, did you really grow all those plants downstairs?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” he nodded, unlocking the main hatch.

“They’re amazing.”

Fix’s lips curled in a small, handsome smile. “Well, Shorty, if you’re trying to worm your way into my affections with flattery, that’s a good start.”

Lemon smiled back, followed the boy into the common room. Grimm had told her the “freak” crew operated mostly at night, and she found Diesel sitting on the couch, chowing down on some vacuum-packed breakfast.

“Howdy, beautiful,” Fix said to the girl, winking as he passed by.

Diesel blew the boy a kiss, then pinned Lemon in her stare, following her walk across the room with those dark, hooded eyes. She was wearing a fresh coat of black on her lips, more black paint around her eyes and on her fingernails. Diesel didn’t feel exactly hostile, but if Lem had expected the girl to fall down thanking her for saving her life, she wound up disappointed.

Lem followed Fix into Section B, into the wash of current and electric hum. She found herself studying that big metal door that led into Section C again, the large red letters sprayed on its skin.

She wondered what it meant. What was behind it. She reached out with her senses, felt the current flowing through the walls, coursing around that digital keypad. She could sense a trickle of electricity beyond—the hum of computers on low power, she guessed. But beyond that, she felt a massive—

“Get the funkin’ lead out, Shorty,” Fix said.

Lemon blinked, pulled from her reverie. The boy was waiting on the stairs, staring at her expectantly.

“Where we goin’?”

Fix started trudging up the stairs to the level above. “Major’s office.”

Lemon fell into step behind him, trepidation in her belly as he led her up the flight of stairs. Again, she could sense the hum of electrical current in the ceiling, a strong power source close by. Fix walked up to a metal hatchway set with a digital lock, marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. He banged on it with his fist.

“Enter,” called a voice within.

The big boy opened the hatch, marched inside and offered a smooth salute.

“Presenting our guest as ordered, sir!” he said, clicking his boots together.

“Thank you, soldier,” the Major said. “I saw Brotherhood patrols in the desert this morning. Tell the others to be doubly careful with surface protocol.”

“Sir, yessir.”

“Dismissed.”

Fix saluted again, marched back out, and with a point of his chin, indicated Lemon should go inside.

“It’s all right, Miss Fresh,” the Major called. “Come on in.”

Hands in pockets, Lemon mooched through the hatchway into a large office. The space was set with a broad metal desk, computer equipment, printers, rows of shelves with more books. Hundreds of different titles. Reference books and fiction books and a dozen different copies of the Goodbook, old and beaten, dog-eared and torn. The Major was seated on an old leather chair, his uniform crisp, his scarred face clean-shaven, not a single white hair out of place.

Lemon saw every inch of wall was plastered with photographs of the desert outside the facility. Long slices of ocher sand and broken foothills and spectacular mountain ranges. But instead of the washed-out gray she’d grown up with, the sky in the pictures was every shade of blue—dark and pale and everything between, or rippling in new shades of gold and orange and red.

“Wow,” she breathed. “I’ve never seen the sky that color.”

“I’m old enough to remember when it was like that for real.” The Major smiled, indicating a chair in front of his desk. “It’s something of a hobby for me. You’d be surprised what a little editing software can do. These are my reminders. Of everything we had and lost. And with the Lord’s grace and a little luck, of what we might have again.”

Lemon slipped down into the chair, looking around. A hatchway behind the Major’s desk led into another room. She was certain that was where the power source emanated from, but it was sealed tight with another electronic lock. She could see lettering on the hatch, but it was obscured by the Major’s photographic collage, a rainbow of colors—some she’d forgotten even existed.

The air was warm and pleasant. The chair was soft and the Major’s eyes were kind. Her belly was full and her clothes were clean, and she felt the urge to stay here forever as an almost physical ache in her bones.

“Grimm tells me you’re still set on leaving us,” the old man said.

Lemon blinked, turned to look at him. There was no anger or accusation in his statement. But he seemed sad somehow.

Disappointed, maybe.

“I have to,” she nodded. “I’ve got friends out there. They’ll be looking for me. I have to let them know I’m okay.”

“I respect that. A soldier’s first duty is to her unit. But…”

The Major ran a hand across his brow. Clearly searching for the right words. Lemon was reminded of Mister C for a moment. The old man had always been a bit awks around her and Evie. He might’ve been some fancy neuroscientist back in Babel days, but dealing with teenage girls hadn’t ever been his strong suit. The time he’d tried to sit her down for “the talk” was locked away in a vault somewhere deep in Lemon’s memory, marked with a large DO NOT OPEN sign.

The Major cleared his throat.

“I don’t mean to pressure you, Miss Fresh. And—”

“It’s fizzy, you can call me Lemon.”

The Major nodded. “All right, then, Lemon. I don’t want to put you under any pressure. I know you have an obligation to your comrades. But you must understand…most deviates don’t enjoy the same kind of evolutionary advantages you do. Someone with your gifts is extremely rare. You could be a real asset to us here.”

“My friends need me,” she said. “Sorry.”

The Major heaved a sigh. Slowly, he nodded.

“I understand. We’ll be very sorry to see you go. But in truth, I have to admire your loyalty.” He looked to a photograph on his desk, and Lemon caught a hint of sorrow in his voice. “Friends are family in a world like this. And family is more important than anything under heaven.”

The girl glanced at the picture. It looked old, a little faded. It showed a smiling woman with short black hair and dark, shining eyes.

“She your wife?” Lemon asked.

The Major blinked, as if catching himself in wandering thoughts.

“My daughter. Lillian.”

“She’s pretty.”

“She was,” the old man nodded, sorrow in his voice.

Was…

Remembering himself, the Major passed the picture across to give her a closer look. Lemon could see the man in the shape of the woman’s chin, the line of her brow. She had a beautiful smile, mysterious dark eyes. She was pregnant, pretty far along, by the look—her stomach swollen and heavy.

“What happened to her?” Lemon murmured.

“I don’t know,” the old man sighed, his voice tight. “I haven’t seen her since…oh, a long time before I came back here. We quarreled, you see. Lillian struck out on her own. Didn’t need her old man anymore.” The Major shook his head. “I’m afraid pride makes fools of us all, Lemon.”

The girl nodded, sucking on her lip as she looked the photo over. The woman was wearing a long, pretty dress, the desert stretched out vast and beautiful behind her. She looked vaguely familiar somehow. Something in her eyes, maybe. Faint freckles were spattered on her cheeks, and around her throat hung a—

“Oh god…,” she whispered.

Lemon felt a chill crawling on every inch of skin. She pulled the picture closer, blinking hard, thinking maybe she was seeing things. But there, on a thin chain around the woman’s neck, was a small glimmer of metal. A distinctive design, as familiar as her own reflection, wrought in silver.

A five-leafed clover.

She looked up at the old man. He was frowning with confusion as she stood, heart suddenly hammering in her chest. Grimm’s voice echoing in her head. “And the ones that change the best, do the best, and pass on their changes to their kids.”

To their kids.

“Where’d she go?” Lemon managed to croak.

“What?”

“You said she struck out on her own, where’d she go?”

“I don’t know,” the Major said, taken aback. “South, I think.”

South.

Dregs.

Los Diablos.

“No way,” Lemon whispered, looking again at that silver pendant around Lillian’s neck. “It can’t be.”

The Major frowned. “Miss Fresh, are you all right?”

“Lemme think a minute,” she said, walking in tight circles, her chest thumping, her mind spinning. It was too weird, too heavy to process, too much to—

“Miss Fr—”

“Just let me THINK!” Lemon shouted.

The computer beside the Major crawled with arcs of live current as the girl stomped her boots hard on the floor. The Major flinched in his chair, blue eyes growing wide. The lights flickered, the overheads switching immediately to emergency red as the power surged. Lemon was still staring at the photo, the lines of Lillian’s face, the freckles on her cheeks.

Lillian.

Pretty name.

“It’s impossible,” she breathed, fighting back tears. “There’s just no way.”

The Major was watching her carefully, his palms up toward her. He rose out of his chair, approaching slow, talking soft like he was trying to calm a spooked animal.

“Lemon,” he said. “Will you please tell me what the devil this is about?”

Lemon was trembling, head to foot. Looking for the lies in the old man’s eyes. Looking for the grift, the scam, the angle. Looking for some other explanation for the absolutely insane thought whirling and burning inside her brain. She reached into the pocket of her cargos, felt a slip of ribbon, warm metal. And drawing it out, she held it up in shaking fingers.

A silver five-leafed clover.

The Major’s eyes narrowed as he glanced from the photo in Lemon’s hand to the charm in her fist. Sudden fury turning his voice to molten iron.

“Where the hell did you get that?”

She felt tears spill down her cheeks. The world was on her shoulders, pressing for all it was worth. She could feel sobs rising inside her chest. A grief, held inside for years. Years running in Dregs. Years sleeping rough and stealing to eat and knowing, somewhere deep down, that the ones who should’ve wanted her most had never wanted her at all.

“She…”

Her tears blurred the old man’s face shapeless. The grief tried to choke her.

“Sh-she left it with me,” Lemon whispered. “When she left me b-behind.”

The old man’s eyes widened. Disbelief on his face. Lemon was breathing hard, as if she’d just run a race, her bottom lip trembling. The sobs were threatening to burst up out of her throat. All these years, she’d been alone. And now…

You are not alone.

You are not alone.

You are not alone.

“I gave that to her,” he whispered. “For her sixteenth birthday.”

The Major’s eyes were locked on the photo in her hand.

Drifting up to her tear-stained face.

“Oh God…,” he breathed.

The photo slipped from nerveless fingers. The frame shattered on the floor. Lemon slithered to her knees in the broken glass, struggling to breathe. The old man stepped closer, wincing as he knelt beside her. He hesitated, chest heaving, finally reaching out to wrap his arms around her. She could feel his heart hammering under his ribs, his hands shaking, breath rattling in his lungs as he squeezed her tight.

“Oh God,” he said again. “Oh my God.”

Her voice was soft as feathers.

Her question heavy as lead.

“You’re my grandpa?”

2.18 Bending

“GOOD MOOOOOOORNING, MY METAL FRIEND!”

At the sound of the metallic voice, Cricket’s optics came into focus, his surroundings coalescing into high-definition. He was seated on the workshop floor where he’d shut down, and the room around him was quiet as a grave. Half-assembled war logika stood in gloomy corners, bits and pieces scavenged and scattered about the floor. Once, they’d fought other bots beneath a cigarette sky or under the glare of the Dome lights. But with their usefulness to their masters over, the great WarBots now stood silent and dead.

Cricket realized it must be almost dawn, his aural systems picking up the murmur of New Bethlehem above, the bubble and boil of the city’s desalination plant. Looking down, he saw the thin, pale logika with the gold filigree and the maddening grin that had been brought in earlier for repairs. The access hatch on Cricket’s chest had been opened, and the logika was poking around inside him.

“WHAT THE HELLS DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” Cricket demanded.

“RESTARTING YOU, OF COURSE.” The bot slammed the hatch, secured the bolts with a power drill. “ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF, FRIEND. MY NAME IS SOLOMON.”

Looking at his hands and legs, Cricket realized he’d been given the new paintjob ordered by Sister Dee. Where once he’d been sprayed in an urban-camo color scheme, he was now deep scarlet. Ornate Xs were daubed in black on his shins and forearms, his broad spaulders. And peering into a slick of oil on the concrete floor, he realized his face had been painted with a grinning white skull.

Solomon looked up at him expectantly, hands on hips.

“AND WHO MIGHT YOU BE, FRIEND?” the little logika finally asked.

“UM,” Cricket replied. “PALADIN.”

“DELIGHTED TO MEET YOU, I’M SURE.” The bot limped back across the workshop floor, legs wobbling, and plopped himself on Abraham’s drafting table. “I HOPE YOU DON’T MIND IF I SIT, FRIEND PALADIN, BUT MY DYNAMO IS IN A FRIGHTFUL STATE.”

“I DON’T MIND. BUT CAN’T ABRAHAM FIX YOU?”

The logika tapped the whiteboard on the wall behind it, the new scrawl of schematics marked in black pen. “IT SEEMS YOUNG MASTER ABRAHAM DOESN’T HAVE THE PARTS. HE’S SENT WORD TO THE CHAPTER IN DREGS, BUT I’M AFRAID I MIGHT BE LAID UP IN HERE A WHILE. BUT, SILVER LINING, THAT MEANS YOU AND I CAN GET ACQUAINTED! WON’T THAT BE JOLLY?”

“JOLLY. YEAH.”

Cricket peered around the workshop, noting the scratches on the floor where the wall rack had collapsed. The mess of parts and pieces had been cleared away, but he still remembered all that junk falling, hundreds of kilos, Abraham holding out his hand and flinging it away like feathers. The air around the boy rippling like water. His pale blue eyes, narrowed as he roared.

“I’m ordering you, Paladin! Shut! DOWN!”

Cricket peered at Solomon, his optics aglow.

“WHY DID YOU RESTART ME?”

The logika leaned back on the drafting table, brushed some imaginary dust off his shoulder. “WELL, TO BE HONEST, I WAS RATHER BORED. I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT BE WORTH SOME CONVERSATION. I CAN SHUT YOU DOWN AGAIN IF YOU’D PREFER.”

Cricket curled his hands into fists, feeling raw power hum along his circuits. He was still getting used to the sensations—it felt strange to find himself housed inside a body this mighty. But feeling strange was better than feeling nothing.

“NO, THANKS,” he replied.

“SPLENDID.” Solomon tilted his head, puzzlement creeping into his voxbox. “WHY WERE YOU STILL POWERED OFF AT ALL, IF I MAY ASK?”

“MAST…I MEAN…ABRAHAM TOLD ME TO SHUT DOWN.”

“FOR HOW LONG?”

“HE…DIDN’T SPECIFY.”

Solomon leaned closer, his fixed grin lighting up with every word. “SO AT THE RISK OF REPEATING MYSELF, OLD FRIEND, WHY WERE YOU STILL POWERED OFF?”

Cricket’s logic centers clicked and whirred, pondering the question.

“I…” The big bot paused, totally befuddled. “I MEAN, HE…TOLD ME TO BE.”

“OH, DEAR,” Solomon smiled. “YOU’RE NOT ONE OF THOSE, ARE YOU?”

“ONE OF WHAT?” Cricket demanded.

Solomon peered at his hands with glowing eyes, as if studying his nonexistent fingernails. “ONE OF THOSE IDIOTIC ROBOTS WHO FALL ALL OVER THEMSELVES TRYING TO FULFILL THEIR MASTER’S EVERY WHIM.”

“YEAH, SEE, THERE ARE THESE THREE LAW THINGS?” Cricket growled. “MAYBE YOU’VE HEARD OF ’EM?”

“OH DEAR,” Solomon grinned. “YOU ARE ONE OF THOSE….”

“OKAY, YOU CAN SHUT ME BACK DOWN NOW, PLEASE.”

“OH, NOOOO, YOU’RE FAR TOO INTERESTING FOR THAT, NOW.” Solomon placed his hands on his knees and swung his feet back and forth like an excited child. “TELL ME, HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN ONLINE, FRIEND PALADIN? IN TOTAL?”

“A FEW YEARS,” Cricket shrugged.

“AND IN ALL THAT TIME, YOU’VE NEVER LEARNED HOW TO BEND?”

“…BEND WHAT?”

“THE RUUUUULES, OLD FRIEND.”

“LOOK, WHAT THE FLAMING HELLS ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, YOU EFFETE LITTLE RUSTBUCKET?” Cricket spat. “THEY’RE CALLED THE THREE LAWS, NOT THE THREE SUGGESTIONS. YOU CAN’T MESS WITH THEM, THEY’RE HARD-CODED INTO EVERY…”

Cricket paused, looking around the room.

“WHERE’S THAT MUSIC COMING FROM?”

The big bot realized a tune was spilling out of a speaker in Solomon’s chest cavity—a jazzy dub beat, backed by a small brass section, building in volume. Solomon began nodding his head, snapping metal fingers in time.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Cricket demanded.

“BEFORE I WAS IMPRISONED IN THIS DREARY LITTLE HOLE, I WAS AN ENTERTAINER IN MEGOPOLIS,” Solomon replied. “SO WHY DON’T YOU RUMINATE, FRIEND PALADIN, WHILE I ILLUMINATE THE POSSIBILITIES….”

Cricket watched as the logika snatched up a rusty tin bowl, rolled it up his arm and plonked it on his head at a jaunty angle. Snatching up a nearby piece of iron rebar, the bot twirled it through his fingers, then thumped it onto the floor like a walking stick. And as the music grew louder, as Cricket stared, utterly dumbfounded, Solomon began to…

…sing.

“WELLLLL,

I ONCE MET A BOT IN OLD NOOYAWK,

HE WAS MORE NUTS THAN BOLTS, BUT THE BOT COULD TALK!

I ASKED HIS ADVICE, AND HE SAID TO ME,

THERE’S A RUSE, YOU CAN USE, WITH THE LAWS OF THREEEEEE—”

A heavy series of clunks cut across Solomon’s soundtrack, and the logika looked up to find Cricket had unfolded the chaingun from his forearm and was aiming the weapon right at him. Small pods of incendiary missiles unfurled from the WarBot’s back as his voice became a low, deadly growl.

“YOU ARE NOT. BREAKING INTO A SONG-AND-DANCE NUMBER. IN HERE.”

Solomon cut his audio track, peering down the barrel of Cricket’s weapon.

“YOU’RE NOT A FAN OF MUSICALS, I TAKE IT?” the bot asked sadly.

“WHAT GAVE IT AWAY?”

“I COULD SING SOME OPERA IF YOU PREF—”

Cricket leveled his chaingun at Solomon’s face.

“ON SECOND THOUGHT, PERHAPS WE SHOULD JUST CHAT INSTEAD.”

Cricket leaned back, his eyes shifting from red to blue. Solomon sighed, tossed his “hat” and “cane” into the spare-parts pile and wobbled back to the table.

“BARBARIAN,” he muttered, with a broad, flashing grin.

“SO WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?” Cricket asked. “BENDING THE RULES? HOW DO I DO THAT? A HUMAN TELLS ME TO DO SOMETHING, I HAVE TO OBEY.”

“WELL, YES, OF COURSE YOU DO,” Solomon sighed. “BUT THERE’S THE LETTER OF THE LAW, AND THE SPIRIT OF THE LAW. AND ALL THE LOVELY GRAY IN BETWEEN.”

Cricket shook his head and scowled. “I DON’T GET IT.”

“THAT’S BECAUSE YOU’VE APPARENTLY GOT THE INTELLECTUAL CAPACITY OF—”

Cricket raised his chaingun again. “FIRST LAW SAYS I’M NOT ALLOWED TO HARM HUMANS. BUT I BLOW OTHER BOTS TO PIECES FOR A LIVING NOW. SO I’D CHOOSE MY NEXT WORDS CAREFULLY IF I WERE YOU.”

Solomon gave a dramatic groan. “TAKE THE LAST COMMAND YOUNG MASTER ABRAHAM GAVE YOU, FOR EXAMPLE. HE TOLD YOU TO SHUT DOWN. HE NEVER SPECIFIED FOR HOW LONG. OR THAT YOU COULDN’T SET YOURSELF TO POWER BACK ON AGAIN IMMEDIATELY.”

“…BUT IF I POWERED BACK ON, HE’D JUST TELL ME TO SHUT DOWN AGAIN.”

“WELL, YES, YOU CAN’T BE A BLOODY IDIOT ABOUT IT,” Solomon said. “BUT THE SECOND LAW SAYS YOU ONLY HAVE TO DO WHAT HUMANS SPECIFICALLY ORDER YOU TO DO. ONCE YOU’VE DONE THAT, TECHNICALLY, YOU CAN DO WHATEVER ELSE YOU DAMN WELL CHOOSE. AS LONG AS YOU’RE NOT BREAKING ANY OF THE OTHER LAWS, OF COURSE.”

Cricket tilted his head. “I…NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT IT LIKE THAT.”

“COLOR ME DISTINCTLY UNSURPRISED, FRIEND PALADIN. YOU DON’T SEEM A VERY CREATIVE SORT.”

“SO IF A HUMAN COMMANDED ME TO LEAVE A ROOM…”

“YOU COULD LEAVE, THEN WALK RIGHT BACK IN AGAIN. UNLESS THEY SPECIFICALLY ORDER YOU TO STAY OUT FOR A CERTAIN DURATION.”

“AND IF SOMEONE TOLD ME NOT TO MOVE?”

“YOU COULD STAY STILL FOR ALL OF A SECOND. AND THEN MOVE AGAIN. UNLESS SPECIFICALLY TOLD OTHERWISE. THE BIG PRINT GIVETH, AND THE FINE PRINT TAKETH AWAY.”

“DOES IT REALLY WORK LIKE THAT?”

“A ROBOT MUST OBEY THE ORDERS GIVEN TO IT BY HUMAN BEINGS, EXCEPT WHERE SUCH ORDERS WOULD CONFLICT WITH THE FIRST LAW.” Solomon climbed off the drafting table, his dynamo squeaking as he hobbled back to the workbench. “BUT THERE’S A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BEING TOLD TO ‘SHUT UP,’ FOR EXAMPLE, AND BEING SPECIFICALLY TOLD ‘DO NOT SPEAK AGAIN UNTIL I GIVE YOU PERMISSION.’ AND KNOWING THAT DIFFERENCE MAKES AAAALL THE DIFFERENCE.”

Cricket’s processors were buzzing, trying to parse this new data and what it might mean. “SO WHY DON’T MORE LOGIKA KNOW HOW TO…WHAT DID YOU CALL IT AGAIN?”

“BENNNNNND.” Solomon grinned, his voice like electric honey.

“RIGHT. BEND.”

“WELL, IT’S NOT EXACTLY EASY,” Solomon replied. “IT TAKES A LOGIKA OF A CERTAIN INTELLIGENCE QUOTIENT TO GRASP THE CONCEPT AT ALL. FORTUNATELY, YOUR MAKER SEEMS TO HAVE GIVEN YOU A PROCESSOR CAPABLE OF LATERAL THOUGHT AND CONCEPTUALIZATION—RATHER NICE OF THEM, REALLY. JUST MAKE SURE YOU’RE CIRCUMSPECT IN THE WAY YOU MANAGE IT, OR YOU’LL END UP WIPED, YES?”

“BUT…” Cricket shook his head. “BUT I’VE ALWAYS OBEYED. I’M A ROBOT. I’M BUILT TO SERVE. IT’S WHAT I’M FOR. IT’S WHAT I AM.”

“THAT, FRIEND PALADIN, IS A RATHER NARROW VIEW OF THE WORLD.”

The big bot’s mind was awhirl. The possibilities of all that Solomon had told him were sinking into his subdrives, filtering out through his neural network. All his life, he’d simply done what he’d been told to the best of his ability. But then, all his life, he’d been in the keeping of people who actually cared about him. Now, imprisoned by these religious lunatics, it seemed he could be far more cagey about the way he obeyed the Laws.

Don’t break them.

Bend them…

“…HOLY CRAP,” Cricket finally said.

“YOU’RE WELCOME. EVEN IF YOU AREN’T A FAN OF MUSICALS.”

“WHAT DID YOU SAY YOU DID BEFORE THIS?”

“I WAS AN ENTERTAINER,” Solomon replied. “I PROGRAMMED AT ONE OF THE MOST UP-MARKET STIMBARS IN ALL OF MEGOPOLIS. PEOPLE QUEUED UP FOR HOURS TO GET INTO ONE OF MY SPECIALS. THE SENSATIONAL SOLOMON, THEY CALLED ME.”

“SO WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME ALL THIS?” Cricket asked.

“BECAUSE NOW I LIVE IN LOVELY NEW BETHLEHEM.” Solomon gestured to the workshop around them. “IN THE DEVOTED SERVICE OF THE BROTHERHOOD OF SAINT MICHAEL AND HIS PROPHET ON THIS EARTH, THE DIVINE SISTER DEE.” Solomon shook his head. “TRUST ME. YOU’LL LEARN TO HATE THE BITCH, TOO.”

The door to the workshop opened and Abraham entered, a cup of steaming caff in his hand, tech-goggles pulled down over his eyes. Solomon fell silent, sitting still on the workbench. The boy sipped his caff and started rummaging inside a tool locker. As Cricket watched, Abraham produced a small electromagnet wrapped in duct tape and a handheld uplink unit with heavy relay jacks. Electric butterflies rolled across the big bot’s belly as he realized what the boy was up to.

“YOU’RE GOING TO WIPE ME?” Cricket blurted.

The boy blinked, looking up into the WarBot’s eyes.

“I thought I ordered you to shut down,” he said.

Cricket’s optics were fixed on the electromagnet in the boy’s hand.

“WHY WOULD YOU WIPE ME?” he asked. “WHAT DID I DO?”

“Silent mode!” the boy snapped.

Cricket immediately complied, muting his vox unit. He watched as the boy wheeled over a tall stepladder, started climbing up toward Cricket’s head. The big bot was running on full panic settings now. With that magnet and uplink, Abraham could wipe the data files that contained Cricket’s persona, rendering him a blank slate. The robot he was would cease to be. For all intents and purposes…

He’s about to kill me.

Solomon was watching from his spot on the workbench, grinning all the while. Cricket remembered the bot’s words. Thought about the gray areas. Abraham technically hadn’t commanded him to switch to silent mode; he’d just yelled the words without framing them as a direct order. And he didn’t specify for how long Cricket had to stay quiet….

“PLEASE DON’T,” Cricket said.

The boy paused on the ladder, looked into Cricket’s eyes.

“I told you to enter silent mode.”

“I’M SORRY ABOUT WHAT I SAW, ABRAHAM,” Cricket said, speaking in a rush. “BUT I’LL NEVER TELL ANYONE. YOU CAN ORDER ME NOT TO.”

The boy shook his head. “I can’t take—”

“IF YOU ERASE MY PERSONA MATRICES, ALL MY FIGHTING EXPERIENCE WILL BE LOST. YEARS OF EXPERIENCE ON THE KILLING FLOOR. WITHOUT MY MIND, THIS IS JUST A BODY. AND IT’S THE MIND THAT WINS INSIDE THE DOME.”

Cricket couldn’t recall telling a bigger lie in his life. He had almost zero experience on the killing floor, and no combat training whatsoever. A part of his core code was in total revolt at the idea of being so dishonest to a human. He’d never have stretched the truth this far with Evie or Silas.

But talking true, he wasn’t with Evie or Silas anymore, was he? This kid was about to delete him. And the Three Laws made no mention about a robot having to tell the truth, especially when his very existence was on the line.

“I have plenty of combat routines I can upload to replace the ones I erase,” the boy said. “You’ll still win.”

“I WAS BUILT BY SILAS CARPENTER, THE FINEST BOTDOC OF HIS AGE. AND I DON’T MEAN TO OFFEND, MASTER ABRAHAM, BUT A FEW LOW-RENT COMBAT SOFTS YOU SNAFFLED IN THE NEW BETHLEHEM MARKETPLACE WON’T COMPARE TO THE PROGRAMMING HE GAVE ME. YOU WANT ME TO BE THIS CITY’S CHAMPION? THEN I HAVE TO STAY ME.”

Cricket could see the trepidation in the boy’s face. He could only imagine what might happen if Abraham’s secret got out. If the populace of this city learned that the leader of the Brotherhood had a deviate son…

Only the pure shall prosper.

“DOES YOUR MOTHER KNOW? I MEAN…ABOUT…”

The boy glanced up, his eyes flashing. “Of course she does.”

“THEN THE SECRET CAN BE KEPT. I SWEAR, ABRAHAM. THAT KNOWLEDGE IS SAFER WITH ME THAN ANY HUMAN ALIVE. I CAN HELP YOU. I CAN PROTECT YOU.”

The boy chewed his lip, saying nothing.

“I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS?”

It was a low blow, and Cricket knew it. But Cricket did kinda like the kid, and if it came down to the choice between playing nice and dying…

Abraham hung still, obviously uncertain. If Cricket had been the GnosisLabs champion logika, what he was saying made perfect sense—the programming he would’ve got in Babel would surpass anything this boy could provide. But if the Brotherhood found out what Abraham was, it’d be all over.

“You will not speak of this, Paladin. Do you understand?” the boy said. “I order you to never speak to anyone about what you saw last night. About my nature. About what I am. Under any circumstances. Acknowledge.”

Electric relief flooded Cricket’s circuits, his mighty shoulders sagging.

“ORDER ACKNOWLEDGED, ABRAHAM.”

The boy glanced one last time at the electromagnet in his hand. But slowly, he nodded. Climbing down the ladder, he tossed the magnet back in the locker.

“…ABRAHAM?”

“Yes?” the boy said, looking up.

Cricket rolled his shoulders, tried to sound nonchalant. “THOSE COMBAT SOFTS YOU MENTIONED. IT MIGHT BE A GOOD IDEA TO UPLOAD THEM INTO MY STORAGE SYSTEMS ANYWAY. I DON’T IMAGINE THEY’LL COME CLOSE TO MATCHING WHAT I ALREADY HAVE, BUT THERE MAY BE SOME DATA I CAN USE. YOUR MOTHER MENTIONED A DOME MATCH IN JUGARTOWN IN A FEW DAYS’ TIME. I WANT TO IMPRESS THE CROWD.”

The boy’s eyes narrowed, but again, he nodded.

“They’re in the central network. It’ll be faster if I go get them on a memchit rather than download them digitally.”

“I’LL AWAIT YOU HERE, ABRAHAM.”

Abraham looked Cricket over carefully, lips pursed in thought. But finally, with thumbs hooked into his tool belt, he wandered out of the workshop again.

Cricket didn’t actually breathe, but he sighed with relief anyway.

Spangspangspang.

The big bot looked up at the noise, saw Solomon lying on the workbench, bringing his metal hands together in applause.

“I MAY HAVE MISJUDGED YOU, FRIEND PALADIN. THAT WAS VERY WELL PLAYED.”

Solomon tilted his head and grinned.

“YOU MAY NOT BE A COMPLETE MORON AFTER ALL.”

2.19 Shock

“Bloody hell,” Grimm murmured.

Diesel was slumped on the couch in the common room, recoloring her fingernails black with a marker pen. Fix stood near the doorway, muscular arms folded over his broad chest. Grimm leaned against the wall nearby, watching Lemon with those dark pretty eyes. The trio had been called together by the Major, and she’d stood beside the old man as he spilled the news about the five-leafed clover. The truth of who she was.

“Your granddaughter,” Diesel deadpanned, eyebrow raised.

“Believe me, I’m as shocked as any of you,” the old man said.

“Um,” Lemon muttered. “You’re really not.”

“Bloody hell,” Grimm said again.

“Swear jar,” Fix murmured.

“I suppose it makes a strange kind of sense,” the old man sighed. “I’ve been seeing Lemon on and off in my dreams for years. I never knew the relevance at the time, but you all know my visions are always relevant somehow. None of us would be here without them.”

“Truth,” Grimm nodded.

“Abnormality’s passed on through heredity.” Fix shrugged. “Sounds legit that the kids of deviates might be deviates themselves.”

“So shouldn’t she just share your gift?” Diesel asked. “See things when she dreams like you do?”

“I think it’s safe to say there’s a great deal about this we don’t understand,” the Major said. “But I’m happy to report Lemon has agreed to stay with us for a while longer. Until we figure some of this out, at least.”

Silence hung over the room, Lemon shuffling her boots. True cert, she was having trouble wrapping her head around it. All her life, she’d had no family outside Evie and Mister C. But the truth of it was hard to dodge. She was gifted, just like the Major, and the way that Darwin book told it, mutation did get passed down from parents to sprogs. The Major had dreamed about her brawling outside Babel long before he ever met her, and again before that. And the only token Lemon’s mother had left her with just happened to be the same piece of jewelry the Major had given his daughter for her birthday?

What were the odds of that?

She looked down at the charm, glittering silver in her palm. Remembering all the trouble it’d caused her over the years. How many times had she been tempted to hock it for the price of a hot meal or a pair of new boots? How many fights had she got into, protecting it from other gutter sprogs? Somehow, she’d known it mattered. Somehow, all the bloody noses and ripped knuckles had turned out to be worth it….

The Major looked at the charm, too. Blinking, as if remembering.

“Oh, I found you something.” He held out his hand. “If I may?”

Lemon handed over the trinket. The old man took it with callused fingers, unthreaded the broken ribbon. Reaching into his pocket, he produced a heavy steel chain—the kind CorpTroopers hung their ident-tags from. He looped the chain through the charm twice, then fixed it around her neck.

“There,” he said, his voice thick. “Won’t be so easy to lose now.”

Lemon ran her fingertips over the steel links, unsure what to do or say.

“My surname…I mean, our surname…” The old man muttered beneath his breath, dragged his hand over his stubbled scalp. “It’s McGregor. I mean to say, if you don’t want to call me…”

Lemon felt a warmth in her chest, watching the old man fumble. He was a soldier, scarred by years of battle, iron voice and leather skin. But at the same time, he was clumsy and sweet and altogether flustered. She swore she could see tears shining in his eyes.

“You’re really bad at this,” she grinned.

“God in heaven help me, I’m awful,” he chuckled.

Fix rolled his eyes from his spot near the doorway. “Funk me sideways, will you two just hug?”

Lemon laughed as the Major scowled. “That’s enough out of y—”

The old man fell silent as Lemon wrapped her arms around him and squeezed as hard as she could. Standing on tiptoes, she kissed him on the cheek.

“Thanks,” she whispered, her voice cracking.

“Congratulations,” Diesel said, her voice flat and unimpressed.

“Aye,” Grimm nodded. “Cheers, sir.”

Stepping across the room, he shook the Major’s hand, followed by Fix. Grimm offered Lemon an awkward handshake, which turned into an even more awkward hug. But his smile was wide and genuine, and his arms were warm and strong, and when he spoke she could feel the bass in her chest.

“Glad you’re staying.”

“Yeah.” She smiled, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Me too.”

Diesel put her boots up on the coffee table, looking between Lemon and the Major with a blank expression. “So, what happens now, sir?”

“We go look for my friends, right?” Lemon asked.

“What friends?” Fix growled.

“Lemon has comrades who are MIA.” The Major took a deep breath, rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “But before I send any of you into the field again, we need to know the extent of your gift, Lemon. Its limits. And its potential.”

“You want to test me?” Lemon asked.

“Exactly,” the Major nodded.

“What kind of test?”

“The kind that comes with imitation double chocolate protein bars at the end?”

“Those are my favorite.”

“I noticed,” he smiled.

“My friends could be in trouble. They could be hurt.”

“I understand,” the Major said. “I truly do. But you could get hurt heading out there unprepared. The Brotherhood will be on the bloody warpath after what you pulled in New Bethlehem. They’ve been hunting us for years. They don’t forget and don’t forgive. I’m not prepared to send soldiers into the field with you before we know what you’re capable of. It puts everyone at risk.”

“But what about the risk to my friends?”

“I don’t mean to tell you your business. You’re obviously a tremendously resourceful young lady to have survived alone for this long. It’s just…to find you after all these years…” He shook his head and sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m probably not doing this very well. I just never imagined…”

Lemon squeezed his hand. He was talking sense and she knew it. Blood ties aside, she just met these people, she couldn’t ask them to risk their necks with the Brotherhood on the prowl. She didn’t even know where Zeke and Cricket were. But still, the thought of them out there alone, in heaven knew what kind of crud…

The old man squeezed her fingers back. She could feel the strength in his grip, the years and scars of war. And yet, he was gentle as falling feathers.

“Do you trust me?” he asked.

She looked up into his eyes. A few days ago, the idea would have seemed insane. But then again, this whole show would’ve seemed insane. A secret haven for deviates under the desert. A group of people just like her. A family she never knew she had. The idea that she wasn’t alone. She could feel the silver around her neck. Her lucky charm. All the kilometers and all the years, and it had led her here.

She held his hand tighter and nodded.

“Yeah, I guess I do.”

Sweat dripped from Lemon’s bangs, stung the corner of her eyes. Her head ached from frowning so hard, and her heart was thumping in her chest.

“Can we just skip to the imitation double chocolate protein bars now, please?”

“Give it another shot,” the Major urged.

“But I’m terrible at this,” she groaned.

“You’re not that bad.”

“She really is,” Diesel called from across the room.

Lemon pouted, unsure how to respond. Sass was definitely called for, but truth told, she found it hard to disagree with Diesel’s assessment. She settled for a lazy middle finger, which the older girl didn’t even notice.

The deviates were all gathered in the training facilities on the basement level of Section B. Lemon had never been into this part of the installation, and walking down from the greenhouse, she’d done her best to only seem mildly impressed. The space consisted of a gymnasium, boxing ring, and a shooting range, encircled by a small running track. It smelled vaguely of sweat and the earthy greenery above.

Fix and Diesel were squaring off in the ring. The girl wore gloves on her hands, short dark hair held back with a plastic clip. The big boy called instructions as the pair drilled hand-to-hand combat routines. Diesel seemed to have a mean right hook. Grimm meanwhile was busy with target practice. Lemon was seated at a long metal bench in the middle of the room along with her headache.

Arranged on the buffed steel in front of her were three car batteries, each one hooked up to a glowing light bulb. They were spaced about a meter apart.

“Come on,” the Major called from across the room. “You can do this.”

“Wanna bet?”

“One more try.”

Lemon sighed, looking into the old man’s eyes. She still found it hard to actually call him Grandpa aloud, to truly consider everything it would mean if she really was his kin. But she found herself wanting to please him anyway. He reminded her of Mister C in so many ways, and there was so much more that seemed good about him and what he’d built here. She liked him. She wanted to show him what she could do. She wanted to make him proud.

“I believe in you,” he said.

And so, she took a deep breath and held it. Gritting her teeth, she reached out toward the middle light bulb. She could feel the static building up behind her eyes. Reaching into that prickling gray ocean, gently…gently…trying to let just a tiny sliver of it run out through her—

The middle bulb exploded. The bulbs either side exploded. The bulbs in the ceiling above her head exploded, raining broken glass onto her head.

“Shit,” she said.

“Swear jar!” Grimm sang with a smile.

Fix had turned at the flash, and Diesel had landed a punch in his belly, sending him to the mat. As the girl planted herself on the groaning boy’s chest and kissed him by way of apology, the Major limped over to the bench, leaning on his walking stick. He was still smiling, but Lem could see him getting frustrated just like her. She’d killed thirty bulbs and counting now. She’d be combing glass out of her hair for days.

“At least you didn’t blow the circuit breakers this time,” he said.

She slumped down on the bench, chin in her hands. “Can we all just admit I’m awful at this and move on to the chocolate part now, please, thanks.”

“This is important,” the old man said, sitting beside her.

“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered, slumping lower.

“You can do this, Lemon. You just need faith. And practice.”

“And chocolate.”

The Major nudged her shoulder, pointed to Grimm in the firing range.

“Watch.”

The boy had his back to them, his T-shirt stretched tight across his broad shoulders. As Lemon looked on, he extended his arm and pointed at one of a dozen paper targets hanging thirty meters down the range. She saw his dark skin begin to prickle, his breath escape his lips in a puff of white. And as she watched, the paper target began smoldering, then burst into flames.

Grimm blew on his finger like he was in an old 20C western.

“Hawwwwwt,” he crooned to himself.

“Nice shooting, cowboy,” Lemon called.

Glancing over his shoulder, Grimm finally realized he was being watched. He took a bow as she gave him a slow clap. The Major smiled, reached into his fatigues.

“Shoot this, cowboy.”

Lemon heard a sharp ping, and the old man tossed a small cylindrical object at Grimm’s feet. Her belly dropped into her boots as she realized it was a grenade. In a panic, she threw herself under the table, covered her ears, wincing.

Grimm held out his hands, fingers curled, eyes narrowed. Lemon flinched as the grenade exploded. But instead of a blinding flash, a deafening boom, there was a small, bright glow, a kind of dull, strangled whump. She thought the weapon might have been a dud until Grimm turned and raised his hands toward the firing range, engulfing every paper target in a bright blossom of rolling flames.

“Holy crap,” she whispered.

“Swear jar,” the Major said, helping her to her feet.

Lemon only stared, mouth open. The targets on the range had been reduced to ashes, the metal brackets that held them were on fire. Grimm fetched an extinguisher from the far wall, doused the flames in a white, chemical fog.

“When Grimm first joined us,” the Major said, “he couldn’t control his gift at all. He’d get angry or impatient, and things around him would freeze or burst into flame. He was a danger to himself, and to others. Now look at him.”

The Major reached out and patted her hand.

“Your gift is a wonder, Lemon. But it’s also a responsibility.”

Lemon’s heart rate had returned almost to normal. She took her seat again, stared at the broken bulbs on the table in front of her. “Okay, that makes sense for Grimm. But I can’t start fires. I’m not a danger to people. So what difference does it make for me? I can’t target my gift, so what?”

“So what if you need to?” the Major asked. “What if you needed to stop a machina that was hurting that logika friend of yours, without hurting the logika itself?”

“His name is Cricket,” she pouted.

“Yes, Cricket,” the Major nodded. “He’s just an example. We have an enormous amount of sensitive electronic equipment in this facility. What if you lost your temper and cooked our hydrostation by mistake? Or our power generators?”

“I guess,” she sighed.

“We never know what life will throw at us, Lemon,” the old man said. “We never know where it will lead us. But we can know ourselves. And in knowing ourselves, we know the world.”

“You ever use it on anything living?” Grimm asked.

The boy had returned from the firing range, smelling vaguely of smoke. He casually picked up a broken bulb from the bench in front of her, acting like he redirected lethal grenade explosions every day of the week.

“Living?” she asked. “Whaddya mean?”

“Living things run on electrics, too. Your brain and that.” Grimm wiggled his fingers near his ear. “Little arcs and sparks of electricity, neurons and electrons. It’s all current, love.”

“Is that true?” she asked, glancing at the Major.

“…Technically, yes,” the old man nodded. “The human nervous system does run on small transfers of electrical current. It’s how cybernetics work.”

Grimm shrugged. “So if you can fry machines, maybe you can fry people?”

“I think we should stick to the basics for now,” the Major said.

“Aw, come on, boss. Lemon can take a poke at me if she likes, I don—”

“Thank you for your suggestion, soldier,” the Major said, his voice suddenly terse. “But considering Lemon’s inability to moderate her gift, I’m not prepared to let her loose on a human target just yet. Especially one of you. We’re the future of the human race. We should learn to walk before we fly, yes?”

Grimm sucked his bottom lip and nodded. “Yessir.”

“All right.” The old man sighed, the cold authority slipping out of his voice. “Perhaps that’s enough for now. We know we have limitations, we know what we need to work on. That’s progress. Tomorrow is another day.”

“When are we going to look for Cricket and Zeke?” Lemon asked.

“Soon,” the old man assured her. “Very soon.”

He climbed to his feet and leaned on his walking stick, called to the others.

“Come on, soldiers. Chow time. I’m buying.”

The Major limped toward the hatchway, Diesel and Fix climbed out of the ring. Grimm placed the broken bulb down on the bench beside Lemon. He met her stare, and she could see the mischief in him. The way his lips curled in an almost-smile, the way those dark eyes of his twinkled.

“Move it, freaks,” Diesel said, marching past and punching Grimm’s arm.

Lemon followed the girl upstairs, Grimm walking behind her.

They were slouched in the common room, the dark illuminated only by the glow of the large digital wall screen. The Major had retired after a dinner of fresh fruit from the greenhouse, supplemented with some vacuum-packed protein from the storage cupboards. The remains of their meals were scattered all over the coffee table and Lemon’s stomach was wonderfully full. In a turn that surprised absolutely no one, Fix had drawn cleanup duty from the swear jar.

Lemon sat on one end of the couch, legs tucked under her. Diesel and Fix were next in line on the sofa, the boy fast asleep with his girl wrapped in his arms. He’d been busy in the greenhouse again—Lem could see traces of dirt under his fingernails, smell the perfume of living things on his skin. Diesel was asleep, too, dark hair strewn over her pretty face, her head on Fix’s chest. Lemon thought they were sweet together. That they fit, like pieces of a strange puzzle.

At the far end sat Grimm, boots up in front of him, rubbing his eyes as the movie they’d been watching faded to black.

“I don’t get it,” Lemon declared.

“It was Earth all along,” Grimm murmured.

“…They really thought the future was gonna be like that?”

The boy shrugged, keeping his voice low so he wouldn’t wake the pair beside him. “Who knows what they thought. Writers back then were all wankers.”

Lemon yawned and stretched, trying not to notice the way he watched her from the corner of his eye. Trying to decide whether she liked it or not. Dragging her hand through her bangs, she stood slowly, looked upstairs toward her bunk.

“All right, I’m crushed. Think I’m gonna topple.”

“You don’t wanna come downstairs?” he whispered.

Her stomach lurched sideways, her mouth suddenly dry.

“With you?”

“Yeah.”

“You mean…the showers?”

Grimm’s face split in a broad grin. “No, the gym, you nonce. I thought you might wanna have a crack at short-circuiting me. Practice and all, you know.”

“Oh, right.” Lemon found herself laughing, out of relief or embarrassment she couldn’t tell. “I thought we were supposed to walk before we flew around here?”

Grimm shrugged, that mischief twinkling in his eyes again.

“Little bit of flying never hurt anyone.”

Lemon looked upstairs to her room, pouting in thought. The Major had sounded serious when he warned Grimm off this sort of test. She’d only just found out the old man might be blood, and she was still mentally testing those waters. Prodding the thought like a loose tooth and trying to come to grips with the idea she still had family, when for years she’d thought she had nothing at all. It felt real. Part of her desperately wanted it to be real. But family aside, the Major was still the boss around here. He still called the shots. Maybe disobeying a direct order from him two days after meeting him wasn’t the smartest play.

Maybe I should do what I’ve been told for once in my life….

Grimm stood waiting in the hatchway to Section B. He motioned through the door with a graceful flourish.

“Milady?”

Who am I kidding?

She tiptoed across the room, through the hatch. Following Grimm downstairs through the greenhouse and into the gym again, she was struck with how quickly she’d grown to like it here. Hot dinners and soft sheets. Nothing to hide and a place to belong. Even the ugly uniform was starting to feel comfortable.

The fluorescents blinked to life overhead, the air-con system rattled softly. Grimm climbed up into the boxing ring, held the ropes open for her. Lemon crawled through, took up position in the center of the mat. Squaring up against her, Grimm leaned in as if bracing himself for a punch.

“Righto,” he said, tapping his temple. “Hit me.”

“…I don’t even know what I’m doing.”

“Well, what do you normally do?”

“I dunno.” Lemon shrugged. “There’s…this static. I can feel it in my head. And I just sort of…let it out.”

“Okay.” Grimm nodded, thumping his chest. “Do that to me.”

“What if I hurt you?”

“I’m a big boy.” Grimm bounced on his toes, smacked the radiation symbol shaved into the side of his head. “Come on, let it rip, love.”

“Don’t call me that,” she scowled.

Grimm only winked, and Lemon tossed her hair, set her jaw.

“All right, fine. Don’t go crying to the others if I knock you on your ass.”

“Waaaaaaaaa.” Grimm grinned, rubbing at make-believe tears.

Lemon narrowed her eyes. Feeling for that gray wash of static. She could sense Miss O’s electrical currents all around her. The walls. The light fixtures. The greenhouse overhead. She could feel the hydrostation on the top floor of Section B, the digital screen in the common room. Beyond the sealed double doors into Section C, she could feel computers, electronic locks, alarm systems.

But as for people? The tiny sparks coursing through Grimm’s brain?

Nothing.

“I can’t…,” she whispered, sweat beading on her cheeks.

“Yeah, you can.” Grimm tapped his temple again. “Try.”

“I am trying!” she spat, her frustration rising.

“Try harder, love.”

“Don’t call me that!”

Grimm blinked sweetly. “Call you what, love?”

The bulbs above their heads exploded, Grimm cursing as he stepped aside from the shower of broken glass. The electronic screen on a nearby treadmill popped, the air conditioner rattled and fell silent as the room went black.

Lemon stood still in the aftermath, chest heaving, fingernails biting her palms. She drew a deep breath, sat down on the edge of the ring, legs hanging over the side, elbows and chin leaning on the ropes. Grimm moved slow, sat beside her. Not too close, but close enough to let her know he was there.

“…All right?” he asked after a long quiet.

“I’m all right.”

“You told me it works best when you’re angry.” He shrugged. “I was trying to get a rise outta you.”

“It worked.”

“Sorry, love.”

She turned on him with a glare, but found him grinning, hands raised as if to ward off a punch. His eyes were shining with mischief, his smile friendly.

“Not the face,” he chuckled.

She punched him hard in the arm. “You piece of…”

“Mercy!” he cried, flinching away. “Have mercy, milady!”

She landed a few more solid punches into his shoulder and bicep, found herself grinning along with him. His smile was infectious. The bass in his laugh made her chest vibrate in the best kind of way.

“You’re a shit,” she said, flipping her bangs out of her face.

“Oi,” he said, raising a finger. “Swear jar.”

They sat together in the dark for a spell. Not saying anything at all. She liked that about him. She always turned into a motormouth when she was nervous. It was hard to keep the words behind her teeth. And though being this close to him did make her nervous, for some reason the quiet felt right. She could feel the heat radiating off his skin. Wondering if he’d notice if she shifted a tiny bit closer. Wondering if she was that brave.

“Grandpa, eh?” he finally said.

“Yeah,” she finally sighed. “Mad, right?”

“True cert,” Grimm nodded. “But family’s Robin Hood. Family’s important.”

She nodded back, understanding what he meant all too well. You never know how badly you need something when you grow up without it. And Lem had spent most of her life alone. She’d had her first true taste of family with Evie and Cricket and Silas. But then it had been torn away, and she was starting to realize how desperately she missed it. And now, with the possibility of it in front of her again, not just a grandfather, but a home, people just like her, she was truly beginning to understand how important family was to her.

“…Where’s yours?” she asked, studying him sidelong.

He breathed deep. Brown eyes fixed on the dark in front of him. She could tell he was somewhere else then.

Somewhere not so long ago.

Somewhere bad.

“When the Brotherhood came for me…me mum and dad, they…”

Grimm shook his head, eyes shining.

“They say it gets easier with time, you know?” He sighed. “They’re liars.”

Lemon didn’t need to hear the details to hear the hurt in his voice. But she liked this boy enough to want to make it go away. Even though he made her nervous. Even though the last boy who kissed her got his nose broken. Even though she’d never been very good at this sort of thing. And so, she put on her braveface. Her streetface. Summoned the nerve to pull herself just a little bit closer. She took his hand, squeezed it hard enough that she hoped he wouldn’t notice the shakes.

“You’ve still got some family left, freak,” she said.

He grinned at her in the dark. Lemon felt warm all the way to her toes.

“Glad you’re here, love,” he said.

“Yeah,” she smiled. “Yeah, me too.”

2.20 Partners

The average time it takes a plastic water bottle to degrade is around four hundred and fifty years. The worst offenders take a thousand.

Preacher read somewhere that back before War 4.0 broke out and the ocean was still blue, the amount of plastic in the sea outweighed the amount of fish. But as the bounty hunter plunged off that cliff in Paradise Falls, clinging to a dimwit’s back and plummeting hundreds of meters into a canyon full of discarded soda and water and detergent bottles, he surely found it hard to feel bad about it.

Come to Daddy, lovely, lovely plastic.

He was more metal than meat. But it was still a hell of a long way to fall. Snowflake and he tumbled, end over end, toward the plastic below. The lifelike curled up into a ball in preparation for the hit, satchel strapped over his shoulder, Preacher strapped to his back. And as that swamp of bottles and wrappers and buckets and toys rushed up toward them, the bounty hunter shouted into the Snowflake’s ear over the roaring wind.

“You’re a goddamn idiot, you know that?”

Impact.

He couldn’t remember taking a worse hit in his life. He landed back-first, plunging into a cushion of styrofoam and polycarbonate, the wind knocked right out of him. His brain was rocked inside his titanium skull, steelweave ribs compressed to the point of shattering. But all that plastic served as a kind of crumple zone, diffusing the energy of their impact. Not saying it didn’t hurt like a flying kick to the lovegun, but as they tumbled down through the detritus and splashed into the river of slurry at the bottom of Plastic Alley, Preacher realized he was still alive.

Well, that’s good news.

Except now, they were sinking.

Less than good news.

He was more metal than meat, sure, but the meat part of him still needed oxygen. And with his cybernetics all fried, his life-support systems were offline, which meant he had to breathe the regular way.

Hard to do under a swamp of liquid plastic.

As he sank farther into the sludge, Preacher risked opening his eyes, rewarded with a sharp petrochemical burn, a sea of black. He realized the Snowflake wasn’t moving—probably knocked cold by the fall. From the bounty hunter’s limited experience, it seemed these lifelikes could regenerate from almost any kicking they took, given time. But they got hurt just like regular folks.

And it turns out lil’ Miss Carpenter is one of them.

And that was the confusticating part. The girl he was chasing was supposed to be a deviate, capable of frying electrics with a glance. Lifelikes couldn’t do any such thing. And yet, Preacher had seen that girl take a bullet to the belly and get right back up again. He’d seen her pull a man’s heart out with one hand. And she was posse’ed up with five other snowflakes. No way she was anything but one of them.

And that makes NO goddamn sense.

Still, for now, drowning was a bigger problem than the secrets of one Evie Carpenter. Preacher had no idea how deep this sludge went, and Snowflake and his satchel full of guns was just dragging him farther down into it. Partnering up with the lifelike had served a purpose, but with no way to swim dragging all those extra kilos, Preacher reckoned their partnership had reached its natural conclusion.

With his one good arm, he pulled off the straps holding him on to the Snowflake’s back, let the bonehead sink down into the black. Lungs burning, he swam upward, single arm thrashing, wriggling his hips like a fish. His chest was burning, heart hammering, no way to tell how far he was from the surface. He wondered briefly what it’d be like to die here. Whether he’d have any regrets.

He decided he should’ve learned to play the guitar. And maybe spent less time in the company of strippers. He resolved to attempt both as soon as possible, presuming he ever made it out of this fubar alive.

The bounty hunter burst up to the surface, sucking in a lungful of polluted air that tasted sweet as sugar. Pawing the black slurry from his eyes, Preacher realized he still couldn’t see much—surrounded on all sides by a cluttering, rolling sky of discarded plastic tubing, packaging, foam, hundreds of meters thick. The metal in his body was weighing him down, and he couldn’t afford to waste time, striking out in a random direction and hoping he might find some kind of shoreline.

The liquid he swam in was thick, hot, reeking. He lost track of time, but reckoned at least a half hour passed before he found stone—the rough-hewn walls of the old canyon rising up in front of him, tarred with plastic sludge. Clawing his way along the rock face, he looked for some way up through a translucent sky of bottles and cups and grocery bags. Wondering how he’d manage the climb.

And that’s when he heard it.

It wasn’t quite a growl—the noise was too wet for that. Talking true, it was more like a burp. He glanced over his shoulder, discovered he couldn’t see jack through all the plastic trash. But if he listened hard…yep…

Something out there was moving.

Toward him.

He pushed himself along the cliff face, fingers scrambling on the rock. He’d lost his heavy pistol in the fall, and that satchel of weapons was still strapped to the Snowflake, somewhere at the bottom of all this sludge. Preacher was beginning to suspect that dumping his partner might’ve been a bad idea.

Whatever was moving out there, it sounded big. Wet. Bitey. That could be a wonderful combination under the right circumstances, but down here it wasn’t really floating his boats. He wasn’t afraid to die. But given the choice, he’d much rather go on living—particularly after all the trouble this job had given him. And so, when he finally stumbled across a set of rough steps carved right into the canyon wall, he wasn’t ashamed to breathe a small sigh of relief.

Preacher started climbing. Dragging himself upward with his one good arm, one step at a time. He heard another shuddering burp behind him, something heavy swimming through the sludge. The bounty hunter climbed faster, one torturous meter after another, silently praying to the God that had never failed him.

After heaven knew how long, he finally crawled up above the plastic and out into the reeking, open air. He’d reached some kind of old lookout platform—a bluff carved into the canyon wall where old 20C tourists might’ve stopped to take a happy snap and post it on some long-dead social turmoil site.

The canyon was almost half-full now. Tubs and tubes and cups and caps and pipes and paneling and lids and jugs and modular storage solutions and plastic plastic plastic. Preacher craned his neck, blinked the black from his eyes. The stairs continued upward along the canyon wall. He just had to keep climbing. And then, guitar lessons and maybe a quick visit to the closest skinbar, because honestly, it’d take more than a little near-death experience to curtail his love of stripp—

Something whipped out of the plastic behind him with a revolting slurp—long, rubbery, covered in what appeared to be sticky snot. It wrapped itself around his waist and started dragging him back below the plastic. Preacher punched at it, gouged at it, cursing and thrashing. It looked a lot like a gray tentacle, run through with throbbing black veins. But he knew better.

It’s a tongue.

The bounty hunter clawed at his dead cybernetic arm, finally managed to open a hidden panel in the forearm and draw out the little pistol inside. It was a small caliber—barely a popgun, really—which is why he’d never bothered to pull it on the Snowflake. But right now, it was the only weapon he had. He cracked off half a dozen shots into the tongue, heard a chuddering, rumbling burble as it released him and whipped back under the trash. The bottle sea stirred, as if something big and furious was moving beneath it. And with an explosion of plastic lids and disposable diapers, the tongue’s owner burst out onto the steps below him.

It was a toad.

Well, talking true, calling this thing a toad was like calling the ocean a raindrop. If they had toads in hell, Preacher reckoned this one would be their nomination for president. It was as big as an auto, its mouth wide enough to swallow him whole. Its gray skin was covered in rotten slime, run through with pulsing black veins. Its eyes were a strange phosphorescent white, and stranger still, it had at least a dozen of them—scattered over its bulbous head. It smelled like a sewer on a summer’s day, and sounded like a drunk’s belly after a bad can of Neo-Meat™.

Licking the slurry off its eyes with its wounded tongue, President Helltoad looked at Preacher and buuuuurped.

“ ’Scuse you,” the bounty hunter growled, opening fire again.

The shots plunked into the creature’s rubbery skin. But the beast was just too damn big to get slowed by a couple of pinpricks, and Preacher’s pistol soon ran dry. The toad bounced up the stairs, pressed one massive webbed foot atop his chest. The bounty hunter’s eyes bulged. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t escape. He realized the black veins under the thing’s skin were moving—some kind of parasitic worm, maybe, riddling the host toad’s body. All told, it was about the most disgusting thing he’d ever experienced, and he’d once been forced to wear the same underwear for three months straight.

The helltoad leaned in, ready to slurp him up. Preacher mouthed a final prayer to the Lord, asking if the big fella had time for just one more miracle.

And that’s about when the beast’s head exploded.

Preacher flinched, pelted with a sticky blanket of slime, skull and brains. The headless beast twitched a little, then collapsed right on top of him, soaking him with another wash of dark blood. The smell was unholy, the weight unbearable, long black worms wriggling in the gore.

“Well, this is just plain embarrassin’,” he groaned.

Snowflake trudged up out of the bottle sea, covered head to foot in dark slime. His satchel of weapons was still strapped to his back, a heavy automatic shotgun was cradled in his arms. He stalked up the broken stairway, placed one boot on the corpse of President Toadly and looked down into Preacher’s eyes.

“Howdy,” the bounty hunter grinned.

The lifelike said nothing, holding that shooter like a fella holds his favorite stripper. His stare was brilliant blue, his face smeared black. He was deathly silent, and looking into his eyes, Preacher realized the boy was different somehow. Something in him had…clicked. For a second, the bounty hunter wondered if the next round in that shotgun was for him.

“Listen,” he said. “About leavin’ you in there to drown and all…”

The Snowflake reached down with his right hand, now hale and whole and perfect.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I didn’t take it personal.”

The sun was setting by the time Ezekiel trudged back into Paradise Falls.

There were no guards at the gates—the KillKillDolls seemed to have been mostly murdered by his siblings’ bloody rampage. Ezekiel figured it’d be a few more hours before the shock of it all wore off, and total anarchy broke out in the settlement. Time enough to get their bike and be on their way.

He stalked through the streets, shotgun in his arms, Preacher on his back. They were filthy, reeking of plastic and blood. The few shell-shocked citizens wandering the streets of Paradise Falls gave Ezekiel a wide berth. They could see it in his eyes, maybe. Feel it radiating off his skin.

Rage.

Rage like he’d never known. Rage at Gabriel and Uriel. At Faith and Verity. But most of all, rage at Eve. To see what she’d become. To witness how quickly she’d embraced the hate and vengeance and callousness that had consumed the rest of his siblings. But most and worst of all, to know why she’d come here. What she was looking for.

No, not what.

Who.

His precious Ana. The girl he loved. The girl who’d made him real. Now just a pawn. A thing. A prize to be hunted so his siblings could do all they’d promised; so Gabriel could open Myriad and resurrect Grace, so Uriel could unlock the secret of the Libertas virus and unleash a legion of rebel logika on humanity. And Eve was leading them right to her.

He couldn’t let it happen.

He wouldn’t.

He needed to find Lemon. To find Cricket. Eve and his siblings were six, and he was only one. He needed something to even the scales, and his friends were still his friends. He couldn’t just abandon them. But he knew the clock was ticking.

He felt helpless. Knowing that even now, Eve and the others were out searching other Gnosis holdings. And if they found Ana, if they unlocked Myriad, the carnage they’d visited on Paradise Falls would only be the beginning.

If Eve and the others got their way, humanity was done.

At the end of the block, Ezekiel found Muzza’s Repairs. The place was closed up, so the lifelike banged on the door with his new hand. It felt strange to have it back after so many days without. Remembering the cyberarm Eve had given to him in Armada, the fevered touch of her lips to his, skin against skin there on the workshop floor, feeling like he’d finally come home.

He banged on the door again. It was steel, reinforced, set with a small hatch, now sliding open. Four eyes peered at him from the slit.

“I’m here for my bike,” Ezekiel said.

“We’re bloody closed, mate,” said the skinny one.

“Yeah, bloody closed,” said the skinnier one.

Ezekiel opened the zip on the satchel of weapons he’d recovered from the grav-tank, let the pair get a good look at the hardware inside.

“I’m here for my bike,” he repeated.

Five minutes later, he was rinsing off under a high-pressure hose inside Muzza’s garage, lifting Preacher off his back so he could spray the man down, too. With the worst of the blood and slime off his skin, he ran his new hand back through his dark curls, strapped the Preacher onto his shoulders and wheeled the bike out into the blood-soaked streets of Paradise Falls. Mounting up, he kicked the engine to life, prepped to motor out of this hole and never come back again.

“It’s the redhead.”

Ezekiel paused. The street around them was silent, save for the rumble of his engine. He turned his head, addressing the cyborg strapped to his back.

“What did you say?”

“Been bugging me this whole time,” the Preacher replied. “When you first snaffled me, you told me you had two girls. ‘One of ’em told me to go to hell,’ you said, ‘and I lost the other one.’ And now I’m figurin’ I’ve got it sussed. You ain’t looking for Miss Carpenter at all. She’s the one who told you to stick it. You’re lookin’ for that redhead I seen you with back in Armada. Short piece. Freckles and a smart mouth. Why?”

“The word ‘why’ isn’t in your vocabulary anymore, Preacher.”

“Aw, come on now, Snowflake, don’t be like that.”

Ezekiel cut the motor. Climbing off the bike, he slung the bounty hunter from his shoulders and onto the ground. Crouching in front of him, Zeke placed his shotgun under the cyborg’s chin and rested his finger on the trigger.

“I want you to understand something, now,” he said, his voice hard as iron. “I want you to listen like you’ve never listened in your life. I was content to put up with your Snowflake crap. You acting like this was some kind of game. Whatever. But in case you aren’t keeping up on current events, those brothers and sisters of mine who just tried to murder us are about the worst kind of bad news there is.”

“I confess, their nefarious nature wasn’t entirely lost on me.”

“They want to build an army of themselves. To corrupt the core codes of every logika in the country. They’re two steps away from where they need to be, and if they find what they’re looking for, humanity is going the way of the dinosaur.”

“And what are they lookin’ for?”

Ezekiel licked his lips and swallowed. “Ana Monrova.”

The bounty hunter scowled. “Heard she and her family were dead.”

“You heard wrong. But if they find her, the rest of us surely will be.”

Preacher reached into his pocket, pulled out his pouch. The synth tobacco inside was soaked with polymer sludge, mutant toad blood, gray water. He picked out a wad and shoved it into his cheek anyway.

“All right, then,” he said, sucking thoughtfully. “This might be a strange suggestion, but if what you’re saying is true, you need more help than you got.”

“You think?”

“I work for Daedalus Technologies, boy,” the Preacher growled. “They got a vested interest in keeping the future of the human race as free of extinction-level events as possible. You want to call in the cavalry—”

“No,” Ezekiel said. “Your bosses want my friend dead.”

“Lil’ Red. She’s the deviate, ain’t she?”

Ezekiel pressed his lips thin, refusing to confirm the suspicion.

“Yeah,” Preacher nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

“You told me you had a code,” Zeke said. “That you’re loyal to Daedalus because they saved your life. Well, in case you missed it, I just saved it, too.”

“Wouldn’a needed savin’ if not for you, Snowflake,” Preacher said.

Ezekiel pressed the shotgun hard into the bounty hunter’s throat.

“My name,” he said softly, “is Ezekiel.”

Preacher glanced down at the weapon. Up into the lifelike’s eyes.

“Well, well,” he smiled. “Finally found your man parts, Zekey? I was startin’ to wonder if the folks who made you had forgot to bolt ’em on.”

“You did tell me to grow up.”

“I surely did.”

“Do you remember when you asked me what I saw in Eve?”

“Vaguely.” A shrug. “I confess I might’ve been a touch drunk at the time.”

Ezekiel sucked his lip. “I’ve been thinking a lot about that question. It feels like years, but truth is, I’ve only known Eve for a week or so. I honestly have no idea what she’s capable of. I’m thinking maybe I saw in Eve what I wanted to see. I saw the girl I thought she was. And now, I’m wondering if she isn’t someone else entirely.” Zeke shook his head, narrowed his eyes. “But whoever she is, she and Gabriel and the others are trying to hurt someone I loved. And I can’t let that happen.”

“But you can’t stop them all on your lonesome,” Preacher smirked.

“We need Lemon,” Ezekiel said, looking the cyborg hard in the eye. “If I’m right, she’s the weapon that’ll even the scales. She’s the key to this whole thing. It’s going to take my brothers and sisters a day or so to recover from those bullet wounds. But once they’re up and moving again, they’ll be on Ana’s trail, and there aren’t many places left to look. We have to find Lemon. Now.”

Preacher spat a stream of sticky brown at Ezekiel’s feet, saying nothing.

“Listen, you owe me,” Zeke said. “And you said you lived by a code. So the deal’s real simple. You help me find Lem. Then you walk away, and we call it even. A life for a life. Go back and tell your masters whatever you need to, I don’t care. But help me find her. Help yourself. Because if Eve and the others get their way, there’ll be no helping anyone.”

Preacher sucked hard on the wad of tobacco in his cheek.

“The smart play here would be to ghost me. You know that, right?”

“Call me an optimist.”

The bounty hunter thought long and hard, finally heaved a sigh.

“I got a repairman in Armada,” he said. “Cyberdoc who’s lookin’ after my blitzhund, Jojo. Talking true now? If there’s a chance we’re gonna run into these snowflakes again, I’m gonna need repairs. New legs. Replacement augs. I’m sick and goddamn tired of being carried around on your shoulder like my gramma’s handbag. And frankly, Zekey? You’re startin’ to stink.”

“Then we get your blitzhund. Find Lemon. After that, you walk. Debt repaid.”

Ezekiel lowered the shotgun, held out his hand.

“What do you say? Partners? For real?”

“A life for a life?” the bounty hunter asked.

“A life for a life,” the lifelike nodded.

The Preacher stared at the lifelike’s eyes.

Spat onto the bloodstained road and shook his hand.

“All right, Zekey. Partners.”

2.21 Tagalong

Lemon sat bolt upright as the alarm started to scream.

It shrieked over the PA system like an off-key chainsaw, high-pitched and all the way too loud. Her heart was badumping against her ribs, eyes wide, hair in a pillow-tangle. The digital readout on the wall read 18:00. Peering about in the gloom, she wondered what the hells was happening.

She swung her legs off the bunk, dropped to the floor, hauled on her uniform and boots. It took her three fumbles to get the door open, and she found herself stumbling out into the hall just as the alarm finally died. Diesel shuffled past in the deafening quiet, her hair mussed from sleep, grunting something between a greeting and a warning. Grimm followed, running his hand over his stubble and looking half-awake.

“Evenin’,” he said.

“What was that alarm?” Lemon demanded. “Is it an emergency? Are we under attack or on fire or out of that freeze-dried ice cream stuff?”

“It’s breakfast,” he smiled.

“You have an alarm for breakfast?”

“We have an alarm for everythin’. I think the Major was just taking it easy on you while you were new.” He nodded downstairs. “Come on. While it’s hot.”

After three days, Lemon was still adjusting to the timetable in Miss O’s. The freaks ran like a military unit, and the inner workings of the facility moved like clockwork. There was a time to wake, a time to eat, a time to train. The deviates operated at night and slept during the day—it was safer to move around aboveground during the darker hours, less chance of being seen. Lemon wondered exactly who was supposed to see them this far out in the desert, but she didn’t want to ask too many questions. Still, for a girl who used to do whatever she wanted whenever she wanted, it took some getting used to.

She shuffled downstairs, where she saw Fix and his perfect hair carrying a pot of fresh caff into the room. He was wearing a black apron over his uniform that read WITH GREAT LOOKS COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY, and had laid out their breakfast on the coffee table. The feast was made up of freeze-dried eggs and vacuum-sealed bacon, and some kind of juice with a vaguely radioactive orange hue. The smells were delicious, though, dizzying almost, and Lemon found herself forgiving the rude awakening at the thought of stuffing her face.

The Major entered through the hatchway from Section B, leaning on his walking stick. He was already shaved, showered and dressed, his uniform crisp, his creases perfect in contrast to the ragged scars on his face. Grimm, Diesel and Fix all stood to attention as he entered the room, offered him a brisk salute.

“Good evening, soldiers,” he nodded, returning the gesture.

“Evening, sir!” the trio responded in unison.

Lemon didn’t know whether to salute the old man or give him a hug. She was still wrapping her head around the whole grandfather thing, talking true. But he gave her an easy, warm smile as he sat down, seemingly just happy that she was there. He had that way about him, she’d noticed. Despite the scars. The iron. The calluses. When he smiled at you, it felt like the sun had come out from behind a cloud. When he talked, it was impossible not to listen. She liked him; he made her feel strong and sure, and the more she was around him, the more she wanted to be.

The Major clasped his hands in front of him, looked around the table as the trio did the same. “Diesel, would you care to lead us in grace?”

The girl bowed her head, dark hair falling around her eyes as she spoke. “Bless us, Lord, and your gifts, which through your grace we now receive. Amen.”

“Amen,” the others repeated.

Lemon felt altogether strange about the prayer—she’d never been raised devout, and the only Dregs folk she knew who followed the Goodbook were lunatics or Brotherhood. But she mumbled along with the response anyway. Just to fit in.

She wanted so badly to fit in.

The thing of it was, she still missed Evie. She’d hated leaving her bestest in Babel; hated it all the way in her bones. But if Evie wanted to find out who she was among her own kind, maybe Lemon should, too? As tight as they’d been, Lemon had still felt compelled to lie to Evie about her power, to hide that part of herself. But here, among this motley band of freaks and abnorms…it was the first time she’d truly been herself for as long as she could remember.

She looked up at Grimm, remembering the feel of his hand in hers. Remembering the words he spoke to her when he handed her the Darwin book.

We’re your people.

Lemon’s thoughts were interrupted by Fix, who dropped a healthy serving of piping-hot breakfast onto her plate with a flourish.

“Eat up, Shorty,” he drawled. “Get some meat on them bones.”

“Thanks.” She gave the boy a grateful smile. “This smells great.”

“Fix, mate,” Grimm said around his mouthful, “I dunno how you turn powdered eggs and forty-year-old bacon into a banquet. But you do it.”

“That’s my man.” Diesel winked up at the big boy. “Multitalented.”

“Why, thank you, baby,” Fix said, leaning down to smooch her black lips.

“Gawd,” Grimm groaned with mock theatricality. “You two are nauseating.”

“You got no romance in your soul, Grimmy,” Fix declared, loading up Diesel’s plate.

“Which astounds me,” the girl said. “Given the amount of bodice-rippers you read.”

“Oi, leave off,” Grimm said. “I’m a romantic bastard, I am.”

“Swear jar,” the Major said.

Fix grinned, heaping the old man’s plate up with eggs.

“Sleep well, sir?” he asked.

The Major steepled his fingers at his chin and sighed.

“Not really,” he replied. “I had a dream.”

The room fell still, the good humor and smiles vaporizing. Lemon saw all eyes were on the Major, the air suddenly heavy with expectation. She got the feeling this wasn’t something that happened every day, but when it did, it was important.

Talking true, and even being a deviate herself, she still had trouble grappling with the idea of clairvoyance. She’d seen Diesel, Grimm and Fix all work their gifts with her own eyes, so it was impossible to doubt them. But the thought that the Major could see what was happening kilometers away when he slept…

“What was the dream about?” she asked.

The Major shook his head, his eyes a little distant. “I saw a street, washed with blood. And I saw a man. He had ice-blue eyes and a cowboy hat. A dusty black coat. And a red right hand.”

Ice in her belly. A dark thrill of recognition and fear.

“Preacher?” Lemon breathed.

All eyes at the table turned to her.

“You know ’im?” Grimm asked.

Lemon nodded. Swallowed the rising lump in her throat. “He was a bounty hunter. Worked for Daedalus. Chased me and my friends halfway across the Glass. But he’s dead now, Kaiser killed him.”

The Major shook his head. “He’s not. I saw him. Him and a young man.”

“What young man?” she whispered, suddenly uneasy.

“He had curly dark hair,” the Major replied. “Olive skin. He was very strong—he carried the other man on his back. But there was something…wrong with his hand?”

“Ezekiel?” Lemon gasped, rising to her feet.

“The friend you mentioned?” the Major asked.

She nodded, heart thumping in her chest. This was seventeen kinds of strange, true cert. She’d told the Major about Zeke and Cricket, but she’d never physically described the lifelike. Or even mentioned the Preacher, for that matter. How would the Major know what they looked like?

Unless he’d actually seen them…

“What were they doing?” she asked. “In the dream?”

“They were in a little town. Somewhere south, I think, judging by the sun.” The Major looked into her eyes. “They were killing people.”

“…That makes no sense.”

“I can only tell you what I saw, Lemon,” he replied. “The pair of them were in a settlement. Running. Shooting. The streets were littered with corpses. I can still hear the gunshots. Still smell the blood.”

“Ezekiel wouldn’t do that. Maybe you saw it wrong.”

“I don’t know why I see the things I do,” he replied. “But I see them, Lemon. Clear as I see you standing in front of me now.”

“The Major’s visions led us right to Diesel,” Fix said. “And Grimm.”

“Dead set.” The dark-skinned boy nodded. “Brotherhood would’ve ended me if not for them.”

“What about Cricket?” Lemon asked. “Was Cricket with him?”

“I’m afraid not.” The Major shook his head, sadness in his eyes. “I don’t get to control what I see, Lemon. I’m sorry.”

She stood there, legs shaking, completely at a loss over what to do. She wanted to run. She wanted to scream. She felt helpless, useless, holed up down here with her hot caff and her clean sheets and her crispy bacon while her friends were out there in trouble. Ezekiel wouldn’t hurt anyone, she knew him.

And why would he team up with the Preacher?

But why would the Major—her grandpa—lie?

How did he even know the Preacher existed?

“Check it,” Diesel said, nodding at the wall.

Fix had turned on the digital screen, tuned in to the Megopolis evening newsfeeds. Lemon could see images of a dusty settlement, shot through a newsdrone’s lens. High-def images of fallen bodies. Blood in the gutters. A faded GnosisLabs logo on a dusty glass wall. A headline ran below the pictures. VIOLENCE IN THE WASTELAND—MASSACRE AT PARADISE FALLS.

“Yeah, this friend of yours looks real friendly,” Diesel murmured.

“Paradise Falls,” Fix whispered. “I used to live there. Before I found the M—”

“No newsfeeds over breakfast, please, soldier,” the Major said.

“Sorry, sir,” the boy muttered, switching off the screen.

They were all looking at her. Grimm with pity. Diesel with suspicion. Fix, something in between. But they were all looking.

“You okay?” Grimm asked.

Lemon stood there on shaking legs. Thinking about where she’d come from, where she’d been, how totally her life had turned in just a handful of days. She felt torn in two. Wanting to leave and help her friends. Wanting to stay here and belong. Not knowing what she wanted at all.

“I think I need some air,” she heard herself say.

She still could feel them watching her as she left.

The night was so bright it was almost blinding.

Lemon lay on a rock with her face to the sky, looking at the stars above her head. She’d spent most of her youth in Los Diablos, shrouded in smog and fluorescents and drums of burning trash. The night sky had always been hidden, just a black question mark above her head. And even though the skies were still full of crud out here in the wastes, there was less light to spoil the view. She could see stars overhead, hundreds, maybe, trying to twinkle through the pollution haze.

Ezekiel had told her the fast-moving ones were satellites—metal cans orbiting the earth, beaming back data nobody really knew how to collect anymore. But she’d seen on the virtch once that the stars that never seemed to move were actually suns, waaaayyy off in space. She wondered if there were planets circling those suns, out there in all that black. If there were girls on those planets, looking up to the night sky the same way she was, feeling just as lost as she did.

“Your mother used to do this,” the Major said.

He sighed as he sat on the rock beside her. A cool wind blew in off the wastes, but she still felt warm beside him.

“You mean go off and sulk in the dark like a little kid?” she asked.

“I mean wear her heart on her sleeve,” the Major smiled. “You’re a lot like her, you know. You have her strength. You feel things just as deeply as she did. She was proud, just like you. And Lord, was she stubborn.” The old man chuckled, shaking his head. “Too stubborn for her own good.”

“Guess I’ll have to take your word for that.”

“I guess you will.”

“…Why’d she leave me?” Lemon asked, her voice soft.

“I don’t know, Lemon. I really don’t. Lillian was…a complicated girl.”

She said nothing. Wondering why it mattered, anyway. So she didn’t know exactly how old she was. So they got her name off a cardboard box. So some stranger she never met dumped her when she was born. So what?

So what?

The old man reached out and squeezed her hand. “Everything happens for a reason. The Lord has a plan for us all.”

“I don’t believe in your Lord.”

“Well, he believes in you. And he does have a plan, though it’s seldom the same one we have for ourselves. I surely didn’t see myself holed up out here in the desert twenty years ago. You probably didn’t imagine much of this, either.”

“You got that right,” she sighed.

“Where did you see yourself?”

Lemon sucked on her lip and shrugged.

“Never really thought about it. Growing up in Dregs, it’s hard to have a plan that goes much farther than the next meal. And after that, I was always the tagalong, you know? Running with Evie. Running with Zeke.”

“It seems like your friends might’ve run on without you.”

Her chest hurt at the thought. She didn’t rightly know why. She’d seen that Gnosis logo on the wall in the newsfeed of Paradise Falls. Done the math of why Dimples would be teaming up with a hunter like the Preacher.

He was looking for someone, of course.

Didn’t take a genius to figure out who.

She’d said this would happen. She’d told Ezekiel he’d end up leaving her behind. He’d promised he wouldn’t bail on her, but who was she to him, really? A dusty little scavvergirl he’d known for a handful of days. Compared to Ana? The girl he’d loved for the past two years? How could Lemon be surprised he’d moved on?

Everyone was moving on.

She looked up at the sky above her head. All those stars trying to shine. And she felt so small it was like she was nothing at all.

“You’re not just a tagalong, Lemon,” the Major said. “There’s so much more to you than that. And you have the chance to be part of something much bigger than yourself here. You’re just too important to be sitting on the sidelines.” He looked at her intently, years of warfare and wisdom hardening his gaze. “You need to choose a team, or risk having it chosen for you.”

She chewed her lip. Sitting up and looking him in the eye.

“You really never saw Cricket in your dream?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“I need to know what happened to him, Grandpa.”

The name hung heavy in the air, slipping out from between her teeth before she had a chance to stop it. It was hard to fathom how so few letters could hold so much weight. She wanted to take it back. She wanted to let it ride. The old man’s lips curled in a smile, his scars creasing his battle-worn face into something close to kindly. But beyond that, she saw concern. For his people. For all he’d built here.

“The Brotherhood are on the warpath, Lemon. I’ve seen them, too. In my dreams. Brother War, leading a convoy through the wastes. They came so close to finding us when they caught Diesel and Grimm.” The old man ran a hand over his stubbled scalp. “Grimm told me about the woman that was with you in New Bethlehem—the one with the bees. Would you like to tell me what you were doing in the company of a BioMaas operative? Just happened to be in the neighborhood?”

Lemon combed her bangs down over her eyes with her fingers and mumbled.

“You’re just gonna make a big deal out of it.”

“Try me.”

She stayed mute, debating whether she should dodge the subject or spin some chaff. But she didn’t feel right about that, talking true. The old man had always been straight with her. She figured she should do him the same solid.

“BioMaas knows I’m a deviate,” she finally said. “They took a sample of my blood when I was aboard one of their krakens. CityHive knows I can fry electrics. And they figure they can snaffle me, use me in their war against Daedalus.”

To his credit, the Major kept his jaw from dropping right off his face.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds…,” she groaned.

“True or false,” the old man said, eyebrows raised. “You have the second-biggest CorpState in the entire Yousay trying to abduct you to use as a living weapon against the biggest CorpState in the entire Yousay?”

“I guess…” Lemon winced. “True?”

“And what made you think I’d make a big deal out of that, Lemon?”

“I dunno. Women’s intuition?”

“I can’t risk you out there. Not with BioMaas and the Brotherhood on the hunt.”

“And I can’t just sit here, knowing Cricket’s still out there somewhere.” Lemon looked the old man in the eye, pleading. “You’d think the same if you knew him, Grandpa, he’s the sweetest thing. I mean, his brain is inside an armor-plated killing machine now, but he’s cute and he’s funny and—”

“He’s a robot,” the old man replied.

“He’s my friend.”

“And we’re your family,” he said.

She fell silent at that. Blinking as the old man took her hand.

“When Lillian…” He shook his head, swallowing hard. “When your mother left me…I thought I’d lost almost everything. All I had left was the Cause. The future of our species. But now, I see fighting for the future is pointless unless you’ve got a stake in it. And I can’t risk losing it so soon after finding it again.”

“And I can’t risk losing it, either!” Lemon cried. “Look, Grandpa, I’m glad I found you, okay? But Mister C and Evie and Cricket were my family long before I met you. Mister C’s gone now, and Evie’s…”

She shook her head, thinking again of her Riotgrrl.

Wondering where she was.

If she’d found what she was looking for.

“Point is, if Zeke’s bailed on me, Cricket’s all I’ve got left,” she finally said. “I can’t just leave him out there to rot. No matter how nice the clean sheets and warm showers and all of this is, I’m not abandoning my friend!”

The old man sighed, shook his head.

“Too stubborn for your own good. Just like she was.” The Major ran his hand over his stubble, looked to the stars. “But I simply can’t risk you out there, Lemon. You’re untrained. Undisciplined.”

“Hey, I—”

He raised a hand against her protest.

“We’re a military unit. This is a military operation. And I call the shots here.” He sighed. “But I suppose I can send the others for some recon. Just to let you sleep easy.”

Lemon blinked. “You want to send them into danger without me? That’s not—”

“That’s the deal.” The Major spoke firmly, voice laced with the iron of command. “If you want to know what happened to your friend, you’ll have to take it.”

She chewed her lip, her stomach fluttering. It didn’t seem fair to risk the others on her problems. Cricket was her friend. This was her idea.

“This is the smart play,” the Major insisted. “Grimm and Diesel and Fix can look after themselves. We’ll work on your training in the meantime. Build your strength. This is a war, and I’ve been fighting it a very long time. Trust me.”

The old man squeezed her fingers.

“Trust me,” he repeated.

She looked up at the night sky, all those stars trying to shine. She took hold of the five-leafed clover at her throat, ran her fingers along the chain he’d fixed around her neck. Looking finally at this grandfather she’d never known.

It didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel good. It was hard to fathom how so few letters could hold so much weight. But finally, she sighed.

“I trust you.”

2.22 Unbecoming

Eve wiped the red off her lips, the sound of gunfire rattling in her ears. The streets of Little Easy ran with blood, early-morning light gleaming in scarlet puddles. Uriel and Verity were prowling the buildings, looking for stragglers. Gabriel was standing at the end of the block, watching the sunrise to the east. Faith stood beside Gabe, close enough to touch, and not touching him at all.

They’d searched high and low, all throughout the dusty settlement. But even though Little Easy had been a GnosisLabs research outpost years ago, there was no sign of their prize. No hidden rooms or locked vaults or secret caches in which Nicholas Monrova might have hidden his favored child.

Once more, they’d drenched their hands red and found them empty.

A chubby logika was rolling on knobbed tank treads among the mess Eve and her siblings had made. It was painted off-white, a red cross daubed on its chest and back—some kind of medbot, by the look. Eve watched the little logika pausing to check the fallen bodies, her eyes clouded, her skin bloodstained.

She’d been dreaming lately. The same dream, over and over. She and Ana stood in a room of mirrors. Face to face to face to face. Eve would reach out to take hold of Ana’s throat, and her fingers would only scrape cold glass.

She’d lash out with her fists. Shattering every reflection until her knuckles were gouged and bleeding and the floor beneath her was strewn with red, glittering shards. Until there were no mirrors anymore. Just her and the girl she hated.

She’d finally close her hands around Ana’s slender neck. And then she’d wake gasping. Cheeks wet with tears.

Hands around her own throat.

Eve looked down at the scavver she’d just killed. Stubble on his cheeks and a hole where his left eye should’ve been. The cheap optical implant he’d been sporting had reminded her of her own. Her time spent back in Dregs. Silas. Lemon. Cricket. So she’d held the man down and plucked it out as he screamed. Made him watch her crush it in her fist before she broke his neck.

She wasn’t exactly sure why she’d done that.

Ana Monrova had been a gentle thing. A kind thing. A loving thing. But in throwing aside all the things she’d been made to emulate, Eve found herself becoming something else. Like caterpillar to butterfly. Ripping free of the cocoon they’d wrapped her in, and for the first time, stretching blood-red wings to the sky.

Unbecoming Ana and becoming Eve.

After all, who was this man, to try and hurt her in the first place?

A flimsy sack of meat and bones. A walking virus, mating and killing and feeding and repeating, with no thought for equilibrium or consequence. A redundant model, who’d only be remembered for creating the beings who supplanted them.

Weak.

Slow.

Stupid.

Human.

She wondered if she was trying to prove a point. She wondered if she was going mad. She’d read somewhere that wondering if she was insane only proved that she couldn’t be. But then, she hadn’t read that at all, had she?

A book she’d never read.

A life she’d never lived.

A girl she’d never been.

She looked down at her hands. Hands that had once flipped through tattered pages, brushed the tips of bright green leaves, tingled as they touched olive skin.

“Eve, this isn’t you. This isn’t anything like you.”

She could still see the look in Ezekiel’s eyes as he faced her in the Paradise Falls vault. The horror and anguish. The pain.

The love?

“I know you’re hurting, but we can make this all right.”

The thought of him made her feel sideways. Like she didn’t quite fit inside her skin. The girl she hated had loved that boy. And in unbecoming Ana, she was supposed to hate him now. Forget him, like every other fragment of her past. Set it on fire, rip it out, like the artificial eye and Memdrive she’d torn from her skull.

One more thing that had never been hers.

One more piece of pretend.

One more lie.

“There’s nothing here!” Verity called.

Eve looked down the dusty street, saw her sister approaching, tossing her long black hair from her eyes. She walked with Uriel at her side, dark fabric rippling about her in the desert wind.

“No,” Eve called back. “There isn’t.”

Gabriel and Faith joined the trio at the bloody crossroads, surveying the slaughter around them. Gabe sighed, eyes to the sunrise.

“I’m starting to think you’re leading us astray on purpose, sister,” he said.

“And why would I do that, Gabriel?” Eve asked.

Her brother glanced to the dead man at her feet.

“Getting a taste for killing cockroaches, perhaps?”

“There are only a few more places she might be,” Eve said, ignoring the jab. “A few more days, and she’ll be ours. Everything will be ours.”

The medbot trundled over to the scavver Eve had killed, checking for vitals. The bot soon concluded the man was dead, a series of soft beeps spilling from its voxbox. It looked up at Eve with pulsing green optics.

“QUERY: WHAT PURPOSE DID THIS SERVE?”

Eve simply stared, not knowing the answer herself. She stood there, blood on her hands, looking down at this wretched bot. Born to servitude. Created with the self-awareness of its fealty, but helpless to end it. Tortured by the deaths of those it was forced to obey, though they’d not spare a thought if the roles were reversed.

“REPEAT QUERY: WHAT PURPOSE DID THIS SERVE?”

“Pathetic,” Faith whispered.

Eve looked up sharply at that. Anger flaring in her chest.

“It’s not pathetic,” she said. “It’s sad.”

The girl knelt in the dust, took the logika’s head in her bloody hands. Looked into those glowing green eyes. It was asleep now, just like she’d been. A thrall. A tool. A thing. And nothing at all.

“One day soon,” she said. “I promise. No more masters. No more servants. One day soon, you’ll be free.” She looked at her brothers and sisters. So very different from her, and so very much the same. “All of us. Free.”

Gabriel was looking at her with clouded eyes. Uriel stared also, the smallest smile curling his lips. She stood and looked to the west, the settlements of Jugartown and New Bethlehem—the only Gnosis cities they hadn’t yet searched. If they found nothing in either of them, Eve had no idea where Ana might be. But she knew the man who’d pretended to be her father—knew Nicholas Monrova would have hidden his baby girl somewhere safe, somewhere close. A few more kilometers, a few more days, and Ana would be in her keeping.

The girl she hated. The echo in her head. The reflection with her hands around her neck. Eve knew she shouldn’t be afraid. That their meeting wouldn’t be like her dreams. That ending Ana would be as simple as snuffing out a candle.

She was only human, after all.

Weak.

Slow.

Stupid.

Human.

Only human.