by Jay Kristoff
The girl’s voice trailed off. She could’ve sworn she heard…
No, there it was again.
“Someone’s coming,” she whispered.
“Move!” Diesel hissed.
The quartet scattered into cover. Diesel hid behind the old rockslide, Grimm and Lemon hunkered down near the broken tank, Fix behind an outcropping above. Lem could hear a motor now, low-pitched and throaty, echoing off the stone walls.
Squinting from behind her cover, she saw a 4x4 picking its way through the gully, an old trailer hitched to the back. Lemon recognized the knight’s helmet painted on the hood, saw two figures in the front seats.
The 4x4 pulled to a halt a little ways short of the tank, and two dustneck scavvers climbed out into the sunlight. The first was a man, dirty and thin, a pair of cracked spectacles perched on a flat, freckled nose. The second man was pretty much just a shorter, dirtier version of the first. Lemon figured they might be related.
“Shuddup, Mikey,” said the first one.
“No, you shuddup, Murph!”
The pair fetched a heavy toolbox and acetylene torch from the back of the 4x4 and walked over to the grav-tank, bickering all the while.
“We wouldn’t even be here if’n weren’t for you,” the one called Mikey spat. “Sold that WarBot to that kid for less than half it was worth, you did. And now mamma’s got us out here strippin’ the hull off’n this tank cuz you’re too stupid—”
“Don’t you call me stupid, stupid!”
The pair fell into a rolling, tumbling brawl on the rocks. Mikey grabbed Murph’s hair, Murph stuck his thumb in Mikey’s eye. The fight might’ve gone on till sundown if Lemon hadn’t climbed up on the grav-tank and given a shrill whistle.
The scavvers stopped bickering, scrambled for the stub guns in their belts. Diesel rose from cover, assault rifle aimed in their general direction.
“Wouldn’t do that,” she warned.
“Naw, go on,” Fix said, standing up above them, gun raised. “Do it.”
Murph pushed his glasses up his nose, eyes flickering back and forth between the deviates. His lips split into a black-toothed grin. “Help you folks with somethin’?”
“You were talking about a WarBot,” Lemon said.
“No, we wasn’t,” Mikey said.
Murph elbowed his comrade in the ribs. “I’m negotiatin’, Mike, shuddup.”
The pair fell to scrapping again till Diesel fired into the air. The scavvers paused, Mikey biting Murph’s hand, Mikey’s hands around Murph’s throat.
“The WarBot,” Lemon said. “You stole it, didn’t you?”
Mikey spat out Murph’s hand. “Maybe.”
“Then you sold it? To a kid?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, maybe you’ll tell us where to find this kid,” Lemon said, anger creeping into her voice. “And maybe I’ll forget the fact you sold my friend.”
“And then maybe you’ll funkin’ walk out of here,” Fix called.
“Or maybe not,” Diesel smiled.
The scavvers looked at each other. Down the barrel of Fix’s rifle. Back into Diesel’s dead, black eyes and smiling black lips.
“New Bethlehem,” they said simultaneously.
Lemon’s stare narrowed. “You sold Cricket to someone in the Brotherhood?”
“…Maybe?” Murph squeaked.
Lemon couldn’t believe it. These idiot dustnecks had hocked Crick to the same fanatics she’d rescued Grimm and Diesel from. The same psychos the Major and his crew had been fighting for years. Like he meant nothing. Like he was nothing. She was so angry she wanted to—
“Um,” Grimm said. “You got a bee on you….”
Lemon blinked. “What did you say?”
The boy nodded to her shoulder. “I said you got a bee on you.”
“Lemonfresh,” said a voice.
Lemon looked up, heart surging as she saw a familiar figure in a desert-red cloak standing on the ridge opposite Fix. Her skin was dark and smooth, her strange organic armor dusty from the wastes. Last time Lemon had seen her was the last time she ever expected to. But there was no mistaking her face.
“Oh crapitty crap crapola,” Lemon whispered.
The BioMaas operative tossed her dreadlocks over her shoulder.
“We have been hunting her,” she said.
Across the gully, Fix raised his weapon. The woman seemed unfazed, fixing Lemon in her golden stare, bumblebees lazily circling her head.
“You had a bullet in your chest,” Lemon breathed. “You jumped into a car that crashed and exploded. You’re dead. I saw it.”
The woman lowered her chin, peeled aside the throat of her strange suit. Dozens more bumblebees crawled from the honeycombed skin beneath, filling the air with the song of tiny wings.
“Holy crap,” Mikey whimpered.
“Shuddup, Mikey,” Murph whispered.
“We are legion, Lemonfresh,” Hunter said. “We are hydra.”
Lemon blinked, recognizing the words from their first meeting. Putting two and two together and finally realizing…
“You’re not the Hunter I knew.”
The woman shook her head. “We heard her ending song on the winds. But we have many sisters, Lemonfresh. And CityHive has many Hunters.”
Diesel hefted her assault rifle, looking between Lemon and the BioMaas agent. “Would someone be kind enough to tell me what the hell is going on here?”
Looking up into those golden eyes, Lemon wished she knew. This woman was identical to the one she’d met, but whatever rapport she’d established with the operative who abducted her, this new Hunter obviously didn’t share it. And while Lemon knew BioMaas Incorporated wanted her alive, everyone else who’d got in the old Hunter’s way ended up on the wrong end of a genetically engineered deathbee.
“Don’t let her bugs touch you,” she called to Diesel and Fix. “They’ll ghost you with a single sting. You hear me? Do not let them anywhere near you.”
Eyes on the Hunter, Lemon took a step backward, closer to Grimm.
“We need to motor,” she whispered. “Now.”
“Lemonfresh must come with us to CityHive,” Hunter declared.
“Sounds grand,” Lemon called. “But my dance card’s kinda full. Maybe next year when the kids are off to school?”
“She is important.” The woman’s golden eyes flashed. “She is needed.”
“Sounds like the lady’s made up her mind, love,” Grimm growled.
Hunter turned her golden stare on the boy at Lemon’s side. The bees in the skies above began to swirl, their pitch rising as—
BANG.
Lemon heard the rifle report, ducking low. Grimm crouched beside her, the dustnecks flinched. Hunter slung her strange fishbone rifle off her back and searched for the source of the shot. But Diesel was on her feet, staring upward.
“Baby?” she whispered.
Lemon looked up, saw Fix swaying on his feet. He was staring stupidly at the red stain spreading across his hip, the bullet hole below his kevlar vest. His eyelashes fluttered, he staggered, and with a soft sigh, he toppled right off the cliff.
Diesel screamed, held out her hand. A colorless rift tore the sky open just below Fix, a second rift splitting the air a few inches above Diesel’s head. Fix fell through the first, plunged out of the second, dropping into Diesel’s arms. The impact sent the girl sprawling, but it was better than falling ten meters to the ground.
More shots rang out, bullets spanging off the grav-tank hull and the rocks. Grimm shouted a warning, pulled Lemon down into cover. Hunter rolled behind a rocky outcrop as a group of figures fanned out along the ridge opposite. Lemon caught sight of blood-red cassocks, greasepaint Xs.
“Brotherhood!” she roared.
More shots peppered the ground arou
nd them, sparks flying as the lead bounced off the tank armor. Diesel’s face was twisted as she dragged Fix behind a broad spur of stone. Lemon’s heart was pounding, breath coming quick. She could see a long smear of red glistening on the stone behind Fix—the boy was badly wounded but still conscious, pressing his hand against the hole to stop the blood. Mikey and Murph had scrambled back into their 4x4, tearing off up the gully.
“Well, well!” came a cry from overhead. “Fancy seein’ you again.”
Lemon recognized the voice. Caught a glimpse of a greasepaint skull, a smoking cigar in a gap-toothed grin, a high-powered rifle with a sniper scope.
“Brother Dubya,” she whispered.
“You wanna throw those weapons out, real slow,” the Brother called. “We got you surrounded. We got the high ground. Remember what happened last time.”
“They will drop their weapons and walk away,” came a shout.
“…Who the hell said that?” Dubya demanded.
Hunter rose from cover just enough that the Horseman could lay eyes on her.
“We remember them,” Hunter called. “They killed our sister. Normally, we would sing them the ending song. But today, we hunt for CityHive. So they will take their oldflesh back to their deadworld, and live to see another sunrise.”
“BioMaas, eh?” Brother Dubya spat from one side of his mouth, then bellowed, “Kill that trashbreed bitch!”
The Brotherhood boys opened up with their rifles. The agent tilted her head and hummed off-key, and at the sound, her bees descended in a furious swarm—some at the Brotherhood boys, some right at the deviates.
Lemon cried warning. Grimm curled his fingers, and she felt the temperature plummet. The closest bees withered and fell, the rest shied away from the rippling air—the boy was channeling the radiation around them, dragging the ambient heat out of their immediate area and pushing it outward in a boiling wave. Hunter raised her fishbone rifle and fired three times. The rounds were luminous green, swaying and dipping through the air as they dropped three Disciples. Lemon heard the sharp ping of grenade pins, saw cylindrical shapes tossed across the gully at the Hunter, bursting into bright balls of flame.
“Deez?” Grimm called. “This party’s getting low-rent!”
“On it!” the girl replied.
Lemon heard a ripping sound, a hollow hiss, and a glowing tear opened in the air above their heads. Diesel fell through it, landing in a crouch on the tank beside them with her fist wrapped in Fix’s collar. In the same breath, the metal beneath them shimmered, and another glowing rift opened up right at their feet.
Lemon’s stomach lurched as she fell, collapsing to her knees a few seconds later on warm stone. Vertigo swelled in her belly, she shied back from the ten-meter drop in front of her face, realizing that she, Grimm, Fix and Diesel were now on the very edge of the stone ridge ten meters above the gully.
Another of Diesel’s rifts snapped shut in the air above their heads.
Wow…
Lemon blinked hard, rubbed her eyes. Grenades were still exploding, the air filled with furious buzzing. Grimm hauled Fix behind some tumbled stone, Diesel pulling Lemon down beside them. A few shots cracked off their cover, but for now, the Hunter and the Brotherhood boys seemed to have each other’s full attentions.
Fix was grimacing, his face pale and filmed with sweat. Lemon drew out the cutter from her belt, cut away a strip of his cargos and used it to stanch the blood.
“Baby, are you okay?” Diesel asked.
“Just…f-funkin’ dandy,” the boy winced, holding his hip.
Lemon pressed on the wound, blood bubbling up through her fingers.
“Can’t you heal yourself?” she asked.
The big boy shook his head, nodded at the barren, lifeless rocks. “N-nothing living around here…t-to t-transfer from. Except y’all.”
“Take some from me, baby,” Diesel said, squeezing his hand.
“No.” Fix shook his head again, wincing. “Ain’t g-gonna hurt you.”
“Fix, please, ju—”
“Oi, listen,” Grimm whispered. “You lot hear that?”
Lemon tilted her head. Under the bumblebees and bullets and screams, Lemon scoped a faint droning noise. It was distant but drawing closer, trembling with bass. Sticking her head up over their cover, she peered off to the south, saw three dark shapes in the sky, black and insectoid in the dawn light.
“Spank my spankables,” she whispered.
“What the bloody hell are those?” Grimm whispered.
Diesel shook her head in wonder. The creatures were big as houses, their skin bloated and rippling. They flew on broad translucent wings, using inflatable bladders to keep themselves afloat—they looked like the product of an angry love affair between a cockroach and a hot-air balloon. One of the Brotherhood bullyboys caught sight of them, cried out in alarm.
“Lumberers!”
“We used to see ’em all the time on Dregs,” Lemon breathed. “BioMaas use them to dump all the machine parts and garbage they don’t want or need. They’re the reason the whole island is a floating scrapheap.”
“So…they’re coming here to throw rubbish at us?” Grimm asked.
“Somehow I don’t think they’re carrying trash.”
Lemon heard an off-key song—the same kind Hunter used to direct her bees. Her jaw dropped as the massive Lumberers swooped low, long, spindly legs trailing over the ground. And with a revolting burbling, each creature opened their stomachs and vomited a tumbling swarm of smaller creatures onto the cracked earth.
“Holy crap…,” Diesel breathed.
“Swear jar,” Grimm replied.
The beasts reminded Lemon of the leukocytes she’d seen in the belly of the BioMaas kraken. Each was about the size of a dog, but that’s where the similarity to anything remotely cute or fluffy ended. They had six legs, each ending in a single razored claw. Blunt eyeless heads, full of impossible teeth. They were armored like insects, their skin translucent. They sounded like a swarm of very angry chainsaws.
“We need to fang it,” she whispered. “Now.”
Sadly, Trucky McTruckface was parked on the other side of the gully, uncomfortably close to the Brotherhood boys, and right in the path of the oncoming horde of clawthingys.
“Deez,” Grimm said, holding up a couple of grenades. “Special delivery?”
The girl nodded, turned to the bare earth beside them. Grimm grabbed Lemon’s hand and squeezed.
“Stay close to me, love. Close as you can get.”
He popped the pins, nodded to Diesel. The girl tore a rift above the biggest group of Brotherhood. She ripped another in the earth beside her, uncolored, shimmering. And without ceremony, Grimm tossed the grenades inside.
The explosives fell from the sky above the Brethren as Brother War roared warning, the blast scattering red cassocks and red chunks across the ridge. The ground opened up again, and Lemon fell through another of Diesel’s rifts, landing butt-first on the other side of the gully just a few meters from Trucky McTruckface.
She saw Brother Dubya rise up from behind cover, skullpaint twisted as he shouted. Lemon fumbled with her rifle, bangs hanging over her eyes as Grimm yelled, “Bugger that, run!” The boy had Fix slung across his shoulders, sprinting for their ride. Lemon felt the air grow chill, saw the air around them ripple as Grimm heated it to boiling to ward off more deathbees. Diesel was on one knee, laying down a spray of covering fire that sent the Brotherhood scattering.
With a grunt of effort, Grimm lifted Fix and dumped him onto the floor behind the driver’s seat. Lemon took a desperate flying leap and managed to snag hold of the foot rail, hauling herself into the cab. She hit the ignition, rewarded with twin roars from the motor and sound-sys. Grimm climbed into the backseat, his eyes fixed on the incoming swarm of scuttling claws and gnashing teeth. He stuck his head out the
window, shouted to Diesel.
“Time to go, freak!”
Diesel nodded, scrambled up from her cover and made a break for the open rear door. Lemon looked over her shoulder, saw the girl running, wisps of dark hair caught at her black lips, feet pounding the ground in time with Lemon’s pulse. But her heart dropped and thumped in her chest as she saw Brother War in the distance, bringing up his long-barreled rifle and taking careful aim through the smoke and dust.
“Diesel, look out!” she screamed.
The Brother fired, his first shot shearing through Diesel’s leg. The girl cried out, stumbled, but somehow kept running. Fix bellowed in rage, Grimm leaned out the door, bloody hand outstretched. Diesel reached for it as Brother War pulled his trigger again. The second shot struck the girl in the chest, a dark red flower blooming on her skin as Lemon screamed her name.
Diesel staggered, mouth open wide in shock. Grimm reached out to catch her hand. Their fingers brushed, light as feathers, seconds stretching into years as Diesel began to fall. But with a defiant roar, Grimm lunged out into the storm of bullets, locked his grip around Diesel’s wrist and dragged her up into the cabin.
Flying lead punched through the panels, smashed the rear window as Grimm pounded his fist on the back of Lemon’s seat and yelled.
“GO GO GO!”
Lemon planted her foot, fat wheels tearing red gravel, the truck peeling away from the gully’s edge. Bursts of bullets punctured the hull, Lemon flinching as she felt a slug of white-hot lead hiss past her cheek. Fix’s eyes were filled with tears, his own wound forgotten as he pressed on the ragged hole in Diesel’s chest. The girl was gasping, choking, blood bubbling from her mouth and spilling across her chin.
“Hold on, baby, hold on,” Fix whispered.
“No, everyone hold on!” Lemon shouted, looking through the windshield.
The first wave of clawthingys reached them, crushed under Trucky McTruckface’s massive wheels. They flowed around the truck like water, swarming back toward the Brotherhood boys. Lemon looked into her rearview mirror, saw the Disciples had scattered for their own rides. But the BioMaas beasts bore down on them, men screaming, weapons blasting, explosions blooming. She saw Brother War roaring as he went down under a wave of teeth and claws, but she had no time to gloat. She had no time for anything.
