“Go on.”
Cautiously, she put out her hand. “My clothes, please.”
“No. You can stay naked. You’re pretty and…I think the word is hot?”
Her last bath had been this morning, in the salt-water inlet under a skyscraper that’d collapsed. And he’d given her oral. “Stinky seems a better word.”
“You think you smell bad? I see. I will remedy that soon and bathe you.”
“What the fuck…” She tried to move backward, and he grabbed her arm.
“I said to go on. The mechling?”
She sucked in air, let it out, unsure why she was trusting this scav, and yet, she did. Illogical, but she was certain he wasn’t going to hurt her. “The mekkers let them go sometimes, when they go sun mad. That’s –”
“I know what sun mad means. I know what and why the mekkers were releasing them. They’ve stopped, also.”
“Okay. Well.” News to her. She’d wondered.
Mechlings were a finite resource, and most of them weren’t going to be returned. Both scavs and grounders seemed to be collecting them. As novelties? Goods they could sell? Who knew.
“I’ve been trying to open them up.”
“With this? A broken hand?” He ran his thumb over her crooked fingers.
Which was strangely sensual.
She moved to snatch it from him, but he held on, tight. Zero chances in hell, or whatever they believed in here, that she could get loose, if he wished to hold her hand.
Blood thump-thumped in her ears, washing in as noisily as the local tide.
He’d asked her a question, but what was it?
Then he released her hand. The world surged, brightened. Him touching her was potent.
Shaken, she thought through what she wanted to say. He was more than dangerous, more than a puzzle, something about him was doing stuff to her libido.
The little flattened and circular mechling lay on its back, exposing its many limbs and a black underbelly. It reminded her of a crab and had been so close to death and powering down when brought to her that she’d decided to do the necessary evil and try to open it while it was still living.
“I was trying to get it open. Replacing their dying power cells is their only hope, but it’s impossible. Or it is with the tools I have. All we are doing that works is getting them to stay quiet, be still, and to sit outside all day, so they recharge as much as possible. Except…” She smirked. “When we have intruders, a few of them waken fully so they can help me.”
JI nodded. “Clever. So your heart’s desire might be to fix your friends?”
She frowned then shrugged. It was close. She’d let him think that.
“Only to save one mechling, you have to get the extra power cells from another? One would live. One die.”
“Yes.”
“Let’s cut to the key problem. I know how to get them open.”
“What?” She turned to him and found his hand beneath her jaw, gripping her. “You do?” And she felt his hand move with her as she opened her mouth to speak.
So intimate. Fern warmed, remembering how his fingers had been inside her. She blushed and wished she hadn’t.
“I’ll have to talk to Aunt M to be sure, but let’s call it a ninety-five percent probability. And I’m sure you want Judge Ormrad dead. I plan to do that also. So there is our agreement.”
“How could you know that?” she spat. How did a scav know her history? “Oh. From Sawyer. I haven’t agreed, though.”
Did she want the judge dead? Revenge was a sickening need. She’d tried to forget what he’d done.
“When I get you to sign in blood, you’ve agreed.”
Blood was medieval. “But.” She felt the need to spell this out slowly. “I haven’t. Done that.”
“You will.”
Panic seeped into her bones. Irrational panic? No, it made sense to finally worry, just this was from nowhere. As if her bones knew something she did not.
“You can’t –” Interrupting her was a broadcast from a mechling out on the periphery. Scavs were coming. Many of them, only they weren’t alone – Pilf and several grounders were with them. Hostages?”
“What is it?” JI directed her to look at him. “I can tell you’re concerned by something new.”
She stared. If this JI was reading her mind, they really should do a magic act together.
“There are scavs out there. They have my friends with them.”
And she didn’t know what to do, how to handle this. Shooting people was not an option.
“I will fix this for you. If you don’t put your pants on.” For the first time in her presence, he smiled properly. It was such a reversal of his sternness she was wrongfooted.
“Agreed?”
She shook her head, nonplussed. “Depends?” She sorted through his motives. And the no pants issue… Maybe these were his men anyway? But then why would he need this charade? The threat was real either way. “Sure.” She shrugged. “Go for it.”
“I need some data. To deal with these men. Why are you here? What can I offer them?”
She gaped. Give him truths. There were a lot of no-noes. Not free rein fucking the women. Not slavery. But what did it matter to say? “They want to collect waik crystals. To sell or use themselves. They get thrown up on the beach in monster season. There’s tons of buildings here unsalvaged too. Enough?”
“It will do. Get your weapon and go to the top floor and cover me.” JI winked at her.
What the fuck? He was giving her back her gun?
When he strode out the door and into the light, she rocked on her feet a second before retrieving her long gun and knife, then sort of automatically headed for the stairs. Already she was tuning into the mechlings.
She could run, now. Should do, in fact.
Instead she kept climbing stairs.
When she settled the gun into place across the sofa, another thought hit. She could also shoot him properly, safely, if he wandered into her sights. One bullet through the back at shoulder blade level would finish off even a ginormous scav warrior.
Maybe. He did know Sawyer. He was weird and possessive and attractive but that meant nothing, really. In this world, weird was normal.
Run, her mind reminded her. Pilf wouldn’t blame her.
Giving your enemy their weapon was stupid.
She lined up with where the mechlings said this was happening and found him squarely in her sights. If she tried, if a mechling was close enough, she could hear what was said.
Bang bang, she mimed.
Chapter 6
JI stepped carefully through the rubble with his gun sloped across his chest. Being organic had brought with it an awareness of fragility he’d never experienced before. There were three male scavs. They might shoot him, but Osta had been a prominent scav leader. Being in Osta’s body might make them pause. It might also make them shoot him faster.
The reactions of people to a plethora of facts he might know nothing of made life a dicey business, and that was…strangely…exciting.
Osta had led a massive scav attack on the royal landship, killed hundreds of mekkers in a despicable way by poisoning them with a DRAC missile. It was why he’d stuck a piece of metal through the man’s brain. Once that was done it was only sensible to try him out for size as a body donor.
The wolf spider mech had taught him how, as had Ari, in a way.
Sensible to use Osta. He’d been dead anyway. JI tightened his grip on the weapon.
That there was when he went off track himself. He still was not sure of the morality of his deed.
“Greetings!” He waved fingers, stopped before the group, with his legs balanced, outspread. They hadn’t fired, yet.
The five grounders trailing them looked uniformly unhappy. Perhaps they saw a life of slavery before them. Certainly they were bound with their hands to the front. Two female. Three male. Why were they even here with Fern? Grounders normally stuck to the towns or traded in a caravans.
; He switched to looking at the dangerous ones.
Three scav warriors. Male. One ugly, bald one bearing blood on his sleeve. Wriggly blue-veined tattoos sprawled across his face and hands.
Aunt M rolled over the sky to the left then landed with a bump and swagger of his spindly limbs, before the scavs could do more than yelp, JI held up a hand.
“It’s okay. This mech is with me.” Then he smiled, emphasizing that he too was hard and dangerous. Smiling with menace was one of the skills he was learning.
Meeting Fern had brought out his best. A lot to smile about with her displayed half-naked before him. Even now, his cock wanted to go back there.
Soon, he decided. Soon as he had this under control. Cradling his rifle, he let his right hand slip into an inner coat pocket so he could fondle the power cells. He’d taken three of them from his baby aux-mech body when he transferred to Osta.
The power cells were a talisman. His good luck symbols. Not that he believed in them. but they clicked and rolled over one another in a way that calmed him.
“Thought you were dead,” one of the scavs said, a skinny, tousle-haired blond with his belt loaded with knives. His focus dipped from JI to Aunt M and back to JI. “Osta? Right?”
“Correct.” He’d claim that name with them, explain to Fern later. That Aunt M waited beside him would help convince them he was a serious hazard.
The buzz of things-to-consider piled into JI’s head and circled, connected, ran amok – their body language giveaways, the twitch of eyes, lips, their stance, their possible relationships – from male fighters with a history to lovers to acquaintances. Confusing yet infinitely interesting. What would they do if he said X or Y or did Z?
“From a warband?” He cocked his head.
“No. Just us. Same as you, Osta? You were lost after the battle. Everyone said you’d died.”
“No. I’m very much alive.” He could never explain his origins to these or any scavs. That would be the most dangerous action he could take. “I’m here today to convince you of the advantages in joining with this grounder group, and myself, and Aunt M.” He indicated his mad metal companion. “And the sniper behind me, up there, watching us.” He paused to let that sink in. “We can stake out the beaches here for monster season. A few weeks at most. There are good reasons. They will explain.” He waved a hand at the oldest and hopefully wisest of the grounders.
He didn’t know himself what this monster season was.
“What?” The knife-loving scav half-turned to his two fellow scavs and shrugged. His matted locks looked in need of a fire to clean them.
“Explain.” JI nodded at the grounder.
And thus it began.
Facts and more facts spilled.
People were crazy things. Everything they did was like programming, but down to cellular level. Much more complex than he’d imagined. He’d gone solo out there for ages. Now, he had people to watch. When he accompanied Ryke, he’d been off balance and had still been adapting to being in this body.
As a mech he’d had trajectories and mapping to think about, missile paths and lock-ons, power levels, landscape contours, his mechlings, the enemy locations, and more. But all those were cold factoids.
With humanoids everything was fuzzed out and wiffly-waffly. He’d made up a word there to describe this ultimate deluge of information. How did people ever know what everyone else thought or might do?
The grounder with the strands of gray hair sniffling on his wrinkled head like starving worms – Pilf – he was setting out what they did here. The human, Shakespeare, would’ve approved of his description of Pilf.
JI listened to the words said, added a few himself, then he watched.
The crook of an elbow, the tilt of hand, the whispers, the heartbeat at temples, the minutiae of people interacting. In his head arose the roar of everything coalescing into data streams that crisscrossed and feedbacked, and sometimes petered into dead-ends.
Such pretty possibilities.
This could end in violence and everyone dead or it could end in a party.
JI grinned.
Fucking blood-vows, he could swim in this mess of humanity forever and die laughing.
Why had he not seen this before?
Monster season, Pilf had told them. We get crystals, sell them. The scavs were not quite convinced.
“We join together.” JI spoke in the deepest baritone he could summon from the bottom of his lungs. “You, me, them. The grounders, Pilf’s friends, will be far more dedicated at the task if they’re free. We share food. We share the crystals and we part on good terms. Any other local salvage we keep what we find. You have no warband to back you up. Take this deal. Shake on it.” This would sway them. The surety had him in a lock.
Though he figured, with a probability of seventy to eighty or so percent-ish…that the scavs would consider treachery at the end. He’d deal with it then. Asking for a blood-signed contract would only make them try for treachery now.
“Good?” He upped his chin, nodded.
As this wave of positive energy spread from him, he saw them all nod back. Even the grounders.
“Good. It’s settled then. Go, and they will show you where they’re living. Aunt M. Go too, please.”
They left, mostly single file, after the grounders were released.
Now, he could return to Fern.
She’d been in his thoughts, raising the stakes of this encounter. He was, he reckoned, on a high. His pocket rattled.
“These,” he mused. He pulled out the handful of purple power cells. They rolled like eyeballs across his palm, only less sticky than eyeballs, he assumed. These could be gifted to Fern for use in the mechlings? Or not. He had a certain reluctance over this. Nostalgia, that was the word.
They reminded him of being mech.
He looked up.
The tower waited, with a certain girl inside who he would get to do all manner of things for him. The stained red roof atop it was a cone. Different from other intact towers he’d seen on Aerthe. The builder had been odd.
“A rose by any other name…” He was not sure what a rose looked like, but Emery had described it as a flower.
Comparing a human to a flower had been strange when he was merely a JI-mech 34. Now though, it seemed perfect.
Romeo and Juliet, that might be them? Star-crossed lovers. She was from a planet around a star entirely divorced from this world’s sky. Though Romeo and Juliet had died, and he certainly was not doing that soon.
He started walking back, the dust and rocks turning under his boots and making nice sounds. His senses seemed enhanced this day.
“So much to do, so little time.” Another saying from Emery. That one from a tale about a girl called Alice who fell down a hole into another land.
Humanoids had given him a lot to think about, as well as lies.
He leaped over a patch of rotted timber and paused in place. Fern hadn’t shot him in the back. “This is good. Very good.” He laid his long gun over his shoulder then strode onward. This relationship was off to a wonderful beginning.
Chapter 7
He was returning. She should go downstairs. Sensible, surely?
Fern stayed on the top floor. Let him come to her. She’d listened, and what he’d said to the scavs – negotiating the release of her friends and an agreement that aided them – he’d raised hopes. She’d not had those for a long while. Was he truly a decent man?
Even if running had faded as an option, going to meet him would be too easy.
Scared that she might’ve chosen badly also kept her up here, weapon in hand. On the sofa, watching the door, like a girl waiting for her date to arrive. Except for the gun.
She heard him clumping up the stairs. No scav would survive long, if he made such elephant sounds on a hunt.
Unless…maybe he was doing it to warn of his coming? So as not to frighten her. She’d swear, she could feel him coming, let alone hear. Butterflies were rising. Excited butterflies.
&nb
sp; The two of them had a rapport she could not deny.
He walked down the short piece of hallway and stopped in her doorway, ducked through. Breathing at her, nothing more, and he stirred her. Made her wonder, what if…
Clutching her gun, she stared back.
A quiver of trepidation remained but she’d be stupid not to have that.
JI stalked in, propped his long gun against the wall, then came and took hers also. No words, he just took, she gave, and he leaned that weapon on the wall next to his.
“No pants still?” His eyebrows sloped upward, his big hands resting below his hips. “You watched and didn’t shoot.”
“Mmm. And heard. The mechlings let me into their minds to see and hear.” She’d given away her secret, but the grounders knew anyway.
She wanted him to know she had reasons for staying. Wanting him to understand her motives was a leap of hope. As if she’d put out her hand and said, hey, do we have something here?
Bizarre.
“Show me your position when you shoot.”
Fern stilled. She saw where this went. Her ass-up staring out the window. She’d done up her shirt. Her butt was bare. He’d said no pants, and she’d obeyed.
She barely knew anything about him, and yet she’d obeyed him. This was some sort of crazy relationship. Just because he knew Sawyer, had licked her to orgasm, and she hadn’t shot him?
Dates back home had been as swift to become one-night stands, yeah?
Those guys weren’t like JI. Huge. Deadly. Kinda fucking awesome. And…her hormones were messing with her. She’d not been laid since forever. Not consensually laid. What the judge had done had been horrifying.
Yet JI only waited. That said a lot.
Slowly, she turned over until she was on her knees on the sofa, leaning over the end, just as she did when sniping.
JI made noises that said he’d stepped closer, then came the sound of a belt being undone and pants falling to the floor. Her ears strained. She felt herself grow wet, make that wetter, because the moment he walked into the building her heart had upped its beat and her pussy had done naughty things she’d only confess to at a sex toy party.
Exquisite Possession: A Dark Scifi Romance (The Machinery of Desire Book 4) Page 4
