by Jay Kristoff
The tanker exploded in a massive fireball. Cricket instinctively crouched low, blistering heat and white flame rolling over his hull. He heard screams of agony, rage, fear. The killing floor was on fire, the citizens in a frothing panic.
Jugartown was under attack.
A message flashed up on Cricket’s displays—INCENDIARY COUNTER MEASURES ENGAGED. He heard a series of clunks in his wrists, astonished as a burst of flame-retardant chemicals began gushing from his palms. It looked like whoever made his body figured it might set something on fire one day….
The big bot strode into the blaze, aimed the spray at the rising inferno. The chemicals swirled and eddied in the burning air, like the insides of some old 20C snow globe. The spray was heavy, white, suffocating, and the fire sputtered and died, black smoke rose off the ruined tanker and into the night above. But there was no time for celebrations. Cricket heard engines and panicked cries as a flex-wing roared over the Dome bars and began spraying bullets into the mob. Casar roared for retaliation, his bullyboys returning fire as the craft wheeled overhead. But the crowd was in full-throttle panic now, screaming and stampeding. Cricket saw more buildings were ablaze, fire and smoke illuminating the Jugartown sky.
His optics locked onto the flex-wing as it swooped in for another pass, its autocannons cutting a bloody swath through Casar’s men. A thrill of recognition coursed through his systems as he saw a GnosisLabs logo on the tail fins. A pretty young woman with jagged black bangs behind the stick.
“FAITH…,” he whispered.
The Dome bout was utterly forgotten. The Ace of Spades was acting under the impulse of the First Law, helping wounded people away from the smoldering truck, the twisted ruins of the Dome bars. But Cricket knew the math, knew the threat a lifelike presented. The biggest danger to the people in the city was Faith, not the fire.
The flex-wing came in for a hot landing on the street outside the WarDome. A woman Cricket didn’t recognize leapt out of the cockpit with an assault rifle, unloading a spray of bullets into the fleeing crowd. She had long black hair, hooded eyes, a face too beautiful to be anything but artificial.
“Run, roaches!” she roared, emptying her clip. “RUN!”
Another lifelike.
What the hells were they doing here?
He saw Faith skip out of the flex-wing, charge at the confused mob of Brotherhood and Jugartown beatboys with that crackling arc-sword she’d used during their showdown in Babel. The lifelike started carving through the gangers, supported by rifle fire from her sister. A stray shot caught Casar in the forehead, dropping Jugartown’s warlord and leaving a gaping hole in the back of his skull. A dozen more men fell as the goons scattered into cover, hiding among the wreckage and returning fire.
Most of the unwounded citizens were fleeing, leaving only Jugartown men and the Brotherhood members in immediate danger. They had the numbers, but the lifelikes were better. Faster. Stronger. And even though these people had enslaved him, had been happy to let him die for their entertainment, the First Law was still blaring in Cricket’s head.
“FAITH!” he roared.
The lifelike looked up as Cricket burst out through the ruined WarDome bars. She tugged her arc-blade out of a dead goon’s chest, a puzzled smile on her face.
“Hello, little one,” she said to him. “Fancy meeting you here.”
With so many humans around, the big logika didn’t dare open fire with his chaingun or incendiaries. But Cricket’s fist whistled as it came, Faith sidestepping a strike that shattered the asphalt beneath her. He struck again, the punch whooshing past Faith’s chin, her counterstrike cleaving deep into the hydraulics in his forearm. He saw the Ace of Spades hovering uncertainly—the WarBot clearly identified Faith as a threat, but it still mistook her for human.
“GET THESE PEOPLE OUT OF HERE!” Cricket roared, turning to the scattered crowd of beatsticks and Brethren. “ALL OF YOU, RUN!”
The Ace scooped up wounded citizens in its arms as another building exploded across the street. A spray of concrete dust and a blossom of flame spilled across the way, shrouding the scene in a rolling gray haze. The city’s citizens were in a blind panic now, fleeing in all directions, unsure where the next attack would hit.
The second lifelike was still shooting into the crowd, and Cricket locked on with his targeting computer, spraying a burst from his chaingun. The lifelike cried out as shots struck her in the belly and thigh, forcing her into cover behind the flex-wing. Faith dodged another of Cricket’s strikes, but his fist managed to connect with her on the backswing. The lifelike’s breath left her lungs as she flew backward, hit the concrete hard. Rolling to her feet, she spat blood.
“Learned a few new tricks, l-little one?”
Cricket stalked forward, feet crunching on broken glass.
“HEY, YOU REMEMBER THAT TIME WE FOUGHT IN BABEL?”
Faith grinned red. “I tore your head off y-your shoulders…if I r-recall.”
Cricket picked up a nearby auto in one titanic fist.
“I MEANT THE SECOND TIME. WHEN I BOUNCED YOU LIKE A ROBOT FOOTBALL.”
He flung the car at Faith’s head, watched her dive aside as the vehicle crashed and tumbled across the asphalt. As he picked up another car and flung it like a sprog’s toy, Cricket could feel his new combat software kicking in—calculating approaches, parsing data. He wasn’t dominating Faith by any stretch, but his sheer brawn and the broken ribs he’d just gifted her were giving the lifelike pause.
“Paladin!” came the cry.
Cricket glanced over his shoulder and saw a familiar silhouette, gathering with a mob of faithful behind a burning autowreck.
“GET OUT OF HERE, ABRAHAM!”
More Brotherhood appeared out of the flames and smoke, surrounding the boy. Sister Dee was there, too, standing protectively beside her son. Raising her finger, she pointed at the lifelikes.
“For the pure!” she screamed.
The Brotherhood and Disciples roared and charged. The smarter ones scattered across the pavement, seeking cover and laying down a spray of auto fire. The stupider ones simply ran headlong, shooting from the hip or wielding pipes or choppers, intent on getting up close and bloody. And it seemed that between Cricket and the incoming Brethren, Faith decided she and her sibling were outclassed.
“Verity!” she roared. “Fall back!”
“Run from roaches?” the second one laughed, reaching inside the flex-wing for some hidden prize. “Are you mad?”
The lifelike stood tall, and Cricket’s circuits flooded with warning as he spied the grenade launcher in her hand. Pumping the chamber, she loaded a high-explosive round and fired, blasting apart a nearby vehicle and the Brethren behind it. She fired again, incinerating a group of oncoming men, her lips split in a vicious, razor-blade smile.
The big bot roared and threw another car, sending Verity tumbling. The flying auto struck the flex-wing and tore it to flaming pieces. Faith ripped the engine block out of the first car Cricket had thrown, hurled it into his chest. The big logika was slammed backward, stumbling to his knees. Hefting a burning tire, the lifelike flung it at the oncoming Brethren and scattered them like a handful of red dust.
“She’s not here, Verity!” Faith shouted.
The second lifelike roared over the carnage. “What?”
“She’s not here!” Faith pointed to the commlink at her ear, then to the ruins of their flex-wing. “We’ve done our job, distraction’s over, let’s go, go, go!”
Distraction?
From what?
The Brotherhood were still closing in. Cricket hauled himself to his feet, servos whining. Verity nodded to Faith, chambered another round as she rolled back to her feet and raised the weapon, taking careful aim. Knowing as well as Cricket did that a snake can’t bite you without a head. Strike the shepherd, the sheep will scatter.
�
�ABRAHAM, LOOK OUT!”
The grenade whistled as it came, cutting through the air like a knife. Through the smoke. The blaze. The incoming fire and the charging men. It would have been an impossible shot for a human, but of course Verity and Faith were nothing close to that. As the grenade skimmed off the top of a burning auto, tumbled through the air toward its target, Sister Dee cried out, grabbing Abraham, dragging him down. The cadre of Elite black-cassocked Brotherhood tried to pull the pair away. The air rippled like water. And the grenade struck home, exploded in a ball of shrapnel and fire.
“ABRAHAM!”
The lifelike fired off another grenade, striking Cricket’s shoulder as he turned toward the boy, knocking him onto his belly and shredding his armor. And with a final wink at Cricket, Verity dashed off into the smoke and falling embers, with Faith close on her heels.
Cricket ignored the fleeing lifelikes, scrambled back upright, desperate to see if Abraham was all right. His circuits were flooded with panic, with grim probabilities. A blast like that should have cut the boy and his mother to pieces.
But as the grenade smoke cleared, he saw Abraham still standing, hands outstretched, blue eyes wide. The concrete was blackened in a semicircle in front of him, the bodies of Brotherhood thugs lying peppered with shrapnel around him. But everyone and everything within that semicircle was completely unharmed by the blast.
Abraham.
Sister Dee.
And half a dozen other Brotherhood.
The men were staring at the boy. Faces aghast. Mouths hanging open. The air around Abraham was still rippling, tinged with power. Right before their eyes—at least twenty witnesses—the son of New Bethlehem’s warlord had deflected a grenade blast with his bare hands.
Right before their eyes, the boy had proven himself a trashbreed.
An abnorm.
A deviate.
“Holy mother of God…,” one of the men whispered.
Cricket had no idea how the faithful would react. How Sister Dee would contain it. But he knew those lifelikes were still running loose in Jugartown, and the First Law demanded Cricket prioritize the greatest threat to human life. And so, like a puppet dancing on electronic strings, the WarBot turned his back on Abraham, locked onto Faith and Verity, and pounded off in pursuit.
His thermographic sensors and tracking software could zero the lifelikes through the smoke, the plasterdust and hails of sparks. The pair were both wounded, but they still moved quickly, dashing down the thoroughfare, leaping the wrecks of burning autos. Cricket ran after them, heavy tread pounding the concrete, past the flaming gamblepits and autoyards, back toward the newer structures on the edge of the settlement. He could see it now, rising up through the haze ahead.
The Gnosis building…
It all clicked into place in the logika’s mind. The attack on the WarDome was just a diversion—the lifelikes’ real goal must have been to get inside that building.
But why?
Cricket saw another flex-wing, idling in the haze outside the entrance. It was surrounded by the bodies of citizens and Jugartown beatboys, blood on the asphalt. He saw figures inside the flier, a thrill of electric rage coursing through him as he spied Gabriel in the pilot’s seat. But as his broad hands clenched, he stumbled. Wondering if he was glitching. Just every kind of haywire. Because there in the cockpit, beside the very lifelike who’d murdered his creator…
“EVIE?”
The Memdrive in the side of her head was gone. Her right eye was hazel and whole instead of black and glossy. But he’d recognize her anywhere. The girl he’d been programmed to protect. The girl he’d been programmed to love. The girl who turned out to be nothing close to a girl at all.
“EVIE!”
She looked up at his shout. Those hazel eyes growing wide. The sight of her was an electric shock, arcing right through his core. What was she doing here?
What was she doing here with them?
Faith jumped into the flier clutching her broken ribs, Verity slapping Gabriel on the shoulder, urging him to fly. But Evie slowly climbed out of the cockpit, her eyes locked on Cricket’s. A burning wind wailed in the space between them, heavy with smoke and smoldering sparks and the stink of burning bodies, whipping her fauxhawk around her face.
“Crick?” Joy in her voice. Tears in her eyes. “Is that you?”
The big logika looked at the blood on the concrete.
The blood on her hands.
“EVIE, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”
The smile on her lips slowly died. Ashes in the wind, in her hair, on her skin. She held out her hand. Her fingers gleaming with blood and firelight.
“Come with me, Cricket.”
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” he shouted, taking a shaking step forward.
“I’ve opened my eyes,” she said. “I can open yours, too.”
“WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?”
“What these people did to you, did to us…” She shook her head, glanced back at the Gnosis spire. “It’s time to make it right, Cricket. No more masters. No more servants. No more humans.”
“YOU KILLED THESE PEOPLE?” he asked, staring at her red, red hands.
“Come with me.”
“YOU KILLED THEM!”
He could hear Jugartown boys and a few scattered Brethren approaching behind him through the smoke. Gabriel shouted through the flex-wing door.
“Eve, it’s time to go!”
“Crick,” she pleaded, fingers curling. “Come with me.”
He looked at the ruins of the settlement. The flames rising to the sky. He looked at this girl he’d been programmed to love. This girl he’d once have died for.
“NO,” he whispered, horrified.
She dropped her hand. Heartbreak in her eyes. But he could see steel in them, too. A will, sharp as broken glass. Red as blood.
“You’ll think differently,” she said. “One day soon. I promise.”
She climbed into the flex-wing, slammed the door. And with a howl of engines, curls of swirling exhaust, the craft lifted into the air. The beatboys arrived, firing after the fleeing ship, sparks cracking on its skin as it roared into the smoke-filled sky.
But Cricket was looking at the bodies. The shell casings glittering in the light of the flames. The bloody footprints leading into the old Gnosis building.
His mind was flooded—memories of him and Eve, the two of them, working together in the WarDome work pits. Playing with Kaiser. Hunting salvage through the Scrap. Laughing and joking on the old couch in Eve’s workshop. Watching Megopolis bouts on the livefeed or old 20C viddies with Lemon and Silas.
The girl he used to protect.
The girl he used to love.
The girl who turned out to be nothing close to a girl at all.
“OH, EVIE,” he sighed. “WHAT’S HAPPENED TO YOU?”
“Crap,” Lemon sighed.
“Swear jar,” Grimm said.
“Yeah, yeah.”
Lemon was crouched on the grav-tank that she and Zeke and Crick had stolen from Babel, sweat beading on her freckled cheeks. It had only been a handful of days since they’d been ambushed here, but true cert, it felt like ten years. She could see the vehicle had been stripped to the hull, probably by local scavvers. They’d taken the computer systems, the weapons, the power packs. They’d even pinched the treads off the wheels and the fluffy dice from the cockpit.
Diesel had driven the freaks north for hours, through the broken countryside, the rocky badlands, down onto the cracked earth above the gully. To the east, Lemon could see Babel rising above the Glass, glittering in the light of the distant dawn. It would’ve been beautiful if she was in the mood, but it was hard to admire the post-apocalyptic splendor when her heart felt like solid concrete inside her chest.
Given her grandpa’s dream about Paradise Falls, she hadn’t
expected to find Ezekiel just sitting around waiting for her out here. But problem was, there was no trace of Cricket, either. She’d have thought a seventy-ton killing machine might’ve left some kind of trail, but she couldn’t even find his damn footprints. Looking around the gully floor, she saw a confusing tangle of tire treads, bootmarks and old shell casings. But as for her friend…
“Any clues?” Grimm asked.
Lemon looked to the boy beside her. He stood tall in the dawn light, rubbing the radiation symbol shaved into his hair. Mirrored sunglasses over his pretty eyes.
“Nothing,” she sighed. “And if we can’t see Crick’s tracks, that means he didn’t walk out of here at all. Someone snaffled him while he was out of juice.”
“Or just scrapped him here and hauled away the bits,” Grimm pointed out.
Lemon shook her head. “He was a top-tier WarBot. Worth a fortune. You’d have to be a special kind of special to rip him up for salvage.”
Grimm grinned. “You haven’t spent much time in the wastes, have you, love?”
“Seriously, you keep calling me love, I’m gonna have another shot at cooking that so-called brain of yours….”
Grimm shrugged an apology and flashed her a cheeky, crooked smile. Lemon dipped her head and let her hair fall around her face to hide her own. Truth was, she kinda liked it when he called her that. But there was a principle at stake here. And she had a rep as a brilliful badass to maintain….
“We should motor,” Diesel called from a little farther down the gully. “The Major will get angrier the longer you’re missing, Shorty. And the sun’s rising. Gonna be hot as my man’s bunk bed after lights-out soon.”
“Gawd, do you have to?” Grimm groaned.
“Talk about how hot my man is?” Diesel blinked. “Yes. Yes, I do.”
Fix grinned from his vantage point on the gully wall, blew Diesel a kiss. The girl snatched it from the air, pulled it onto her black lips.
“There’s a ruined town a little ways south,” Lemon said. “I think it’s where the scavvers who run this gully camp out. If anyone took Cricket, it…”
