Lifel1k3

by Jay Kristoff

  She heard the echo of his words in her father’s office, years and lifetimes ago.

  “I’m your friend, Nic. Your family is my family. Never forget that.”

  He’d deceived her.

  But truth was, he’d loved her, too.

  Why else would he have protected her? Kept her hidden all these years?

  “We have to go get him,” she realized.

  Ezekiel raised an eyebrow. “You mean Silas?”

  She shook her head. Looked north, across the wastes.

  Toward Babel.

  Toward home.

  “I mean my grandpa.”

  “Entering Babel will be no easy task,” Hope warned. “Lifelikes aside, the radiation levels are still too high for anyone to plunder the city. But Daedalus Technologies has no wish for anyone to steal Gnosis secrets, either. They have a garrison posted there. No infantry because of the radiation. All machina. Juggernauts. Titans. Siege-class.”

  “Well, I’ve scrapped w—”

  Ana heard a thin yapping bark rising over the city’s song. She turned from the horizon, peered over the railing to the foredeck. Amid the milling crowd, the stalls and shacks, she saw a fluffy white dog. It was no bigger than her boot, cute as buttons. But it was looking right at her. Snuffling the air and barking.

  A figure in a new black coat was standing beside it. Staring at her with eyes of shocking blue. And with a red right hand, he slowly tipped the brim of a dusty cowboy hat.

  “Oh, shit . . . ,” Ana whispered.

  1.23

  BLEED

  “Cricket!”

  Ana kicked open the hatchway, barreled back into the ministry.

  “Lemon!”

  The redhead looked up from her hand of cards, surrounded by grubby opponents.

  “Wassup?”

  Ana dashed to the workshop to grab her satchel. Tools. Excalibur. Thermex grenade. “Get your gear, we gotta go!”

  “What, right now?” Lem demanded. “I’m sitting on four kings over here.”

  “I fold,” said the greasy sprog opposite her.

  “Fold,” said the skinny girl beside her.

  “Fold,” said every other player at the table.

  “Goddammit,” Lemon growled.

  Two thunderous booms echoed in the room, the ministry’s double doors shuddering as their hinges were blasted away. The doors toppled inward with a crash. Silhouetted against the sunlight was a tall figure in a long black coat and cowboy hat.

  “Oh,” Lemon said. “I see.”

  Kaiser stood up from his nap at Lemon’s feet. His eyes flooded red, and a long, low growl spilled from his vox unit. Ana sprinted out the workshop door, satchel in one hand, Cricket slung on her shoulders and shouting, “Whatwhatwhat?”

  “Kaiser! Lemon! Come on!” Ana roared.

  Lemon was on her feet, bolting for the stairwell. The girls and the blitzhund scuttled up the steps to the upper deck, squeezing past Hope and Ezekiel. The two lifelikes stepped into the ministry, children running in all directions, screaming at the sight of this stranger and his guns. His little dog stepped inside, muzzle peeled back in a tiny, razored snarl.

  The Preacher scoped the room. He hauled out a pistol and fired half a dozen times into the ceiling, roaring over the gaggle of panicking children.

  “All right, quitcher hollerin’!”

  The room fell still. The Preacher’s eyes were on Ezekiel. Glancing at the lifelike beside him, taking her measure.

  “I am hereby notifying all residents of this domicile that I’m here on official Daedalus Technologies business. Any y’all who find the concept of becoming innocent bystanders unsettling”—he waved to the smoking hole behind him—“go on and git.”

  “Go on, children,” Hope said. “Get out of here. Daniella, keep them safe.”

  The old woman nodded to Hope, wordlessly shepherded the sprogs toward the exit. Some wailed for the lifelike, calling her name as they were dragged away.

  “Nooooo, I don’wanna leave!”

  “I wanna stay with Hope!”

  “It’s all right, my lovelies,” the lifelike smiled. “I’ll see you tomorrow. You go with Dani now. Be good. Remember your prayers.”

  The Preacher stood motionless as the orphans and urchins were herded out, sniffling, crying, big ’uns carrying the smaller kids, Daniella pushing and prodding. The Preacher tipped his hat at the old woman when she hobbled past.

  Hope spoke softly as the children scattered, her eyes never leaving the bounty hunter.

  “Ezekiel,” she said. “You should go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he replied.

  “Your place is with Ana.”

  “There’s two of us,” Ezekiel replied. “We can take him.”

  “Ana doesn’t know, does she? About what you did?”

  Ezekiel flinched, jaw tightening. “No.”

  Hope looked at him then. Eyes soft. Voice hard.

  “You lost her once, little brother. Most of us never get a chance to redeem ourselves with those we wrong.” She nodded back up the stairs. “You can steal a vehicle in the Wheelhouse. One that will get you to Babel. Go. Quickly. Don’t fail her again.”

  The room was empty now. Hope’s orphans had all vanished; people had scattered from the decks outside at the first sound of gunfire. Rust blew in through the open doorway on an acrid wind, the Preacher’s coat billowing about him like smoke. He sucked hard on his cheek, spat a long, sticky stream of brown onto the ministry floor. Looked Hope up and down.

  “You’d be another special little snowflake, then.”

  “Go, brother.” Her eyes were still locked on the Preacher. “Find redemption.”

  “Hope, I—”

  “GO!” she roared.

  Ezekiel threw one last murderous glance at the bounty hunter. Looked up the stairwell to where Ana and the others had already disappeared. He touched Hope’s cheek, gentle as falling leaves. She closed her eyes briefly and smiled. And then Ezekiel was gone, bounding up the stairs four at a time in pursuit of the girls.

  The Preacher sniffed, tilted his head until his neck popped.

  “Mighty noble of you. But ain’t nowhere they can run I can’t find ’em.”

  “I can’t help but notice you don’t seem in a particular hurry to pursue.”

  “Naw.” The Preacher smiled. “You do this job long as I have, you git as good at it as I am . . . well, it gets a mite dull, darlin’. Gotta look for ways to make it a challenge.” The bounty hunter spat at Hope’s feet. “Talkin’ true, I’m startin’ to enjoy myself.”

  “Enjoy yourself?” Hope frowned. “This is a house of God. I am his child, and I—”

  “His child?” The Preacher shook his head, patting the Goodbook in his breast pocket. “Darlin’, I’ve read this cover to cover more times’n I can count. And in all them times, I don’t recall once seein’ mention of the likes of you.”

  “He made man in his image.” Hope stepped into the center of the ministry floor, arms spread. “And we are made in the image of man.”

  “Mmmf.” The bounty hunter nodded. “You bleed red, I’ll give you that. And I’d like to know exactly what your boy is capable of before I tussle with him again.”

  The Preacher raised his pistols and smiled.

  “So. May I have this dance?”

  Hope moved. Like a lightning strike. Like a hummingbird’s wings. Sweeping up a metal cot as if it were paper, slinging it with the force of a wrecking ball. The Preacher dove sideways, firing as he went. Gunfire thundered, shell casings falling like rain as the bounty hunter emptied his clips. Hope took a shot to her leg, another to her belly, flinging another cot and sending the Preacher flying backward into a wall.

  Both combatants hit the deck, rolled to their feet. The Preacher spat tobacco and blood, unslinging the automatic rifle from his back as Hope spun behind a support column. She flung another cot, which smashed into the wall beside the Preacher’s head and dented the case-hardened steel. The Preacher laid dow
n a hail of fire, Hope’s cover riddled with smoking pockmarks as the hollow-points flew. The little fluffball dog was still poised at the entrance, bristling with impatience. It yapped once, shrill over the gunfire.

  “You just hold back, Mary,” the Preacher growled. “Keep an eye out.”

  Hope snatched a fire extinguisher while the Preacher reloaded. As he raised his rifle, Hope hurled the extinguisher at his head like a javelin. The bounty hunter ducked, firing, the bullets striking the blood-red casing and popping the pressurized can like a balloon.

  White powder filled the air, falling like the long-forgotten snow. The Preacher blinked in the haze, dragged his sleeve across his eyes. Hope careened out of the fog, landing a crushing blow to the side of the bounty hunter’s head. The man flew like a ragdoll, rifle spinning from his grip as he hit the floor. Hope was on his chest in an instant, pinning his arms with her knees, pummeling his face with astonishing ferocity, her own face utterly serene.

  WHUMP.

  “Forgive me, Father,” she prayed.

  THUD.

  “For I must sin . . .”

  CRUNCH.

  Grasping the Preacher’s head, she pressed her thumbs to his eyes. The man gasped, bending at the waist and swinging his legs up. His spurs punched clean through Hope’s throat as he locked his ankles around the lifelike’s neck. And roaring furiously, he kicked down, slamming Hope’s head into the floor with a bone-shattering thud.

  They rolled away from each other, Hope clutching her skull, the Preacher pawing at his eyes. The two were both bloodied, the Preacher’s chin covered in a slick of tobacco red. Hope’s hair had torn loose from her braid, arrayed about her face in a ragged halo as she rose to her feet, beautiful and terrible as a naked flame.

  The Preacher scrambled upright, closed in to hand-to-hand range. Hope swung like an anvil, the bounty hunter blocking with his cybernetic arm. The pair collided in a savage dance of brute strength and shocking speed. Each a blurred reflection of the other. Both more than human.

  The Preacher cracked seven of Hope’s ribs with a single punch. The lifelike pirouetted, deflecting the bounty hunter’s strike and locking up his arm. She slammed her open palm into his belly, bending him double. Smashing her fist down on the back of his head, finally bringing up her knee and sending him sailing ten feet back into the wall.

  The bounty hunter crashed to the floor, blood spraying from split lips. He clawed the deck, trying to regain his feet.

  “Well, darlin’.” The Preacher coughed red. “I confess, I am impressed. . . .”

  Hope said nothing, stepping toward the bounty hunter with hands outstretched.

  “Mary,” the man muttered. “Execute.”

  A split second. The briefest sliver of time. Hope turned, flaming hair glinting in the sunlight. And sitting on the deck right behind her, wagging its tail, was the fluffy white dog. A soft hum spilling from its chest. Its eyes glowing blood red.

  “Wuff,” it said.

  The explosion tore through the ministry, immolating everything it touched. Searing heat. Deafening noise. Black smoke billowed through the hollow space in the aftermath, the concussion echoing long after the blast had died.

  The Preacher dragged himself to his feet. Spat his mouthful of tobacco onto the deck, scarlet and sticky brown. He pulled his hat back on, bloody spurs chinking as he limped through the burning mattresses. The metal floor was scorched where his blitzhund had detonated. Smoking scraps of fur were all that remained. The Preacher stalked to the figure crumpled against the wall. Her hair crisped and smoking. A bleeding, blackened ruin.

  “Mmmf,” he said.

  Hope grimaced, trying to struggle upward. Her body was riddled with shrapnel. Her legs had been blown off by the blast. And still, she tried to stand.

  The Preacher placed a boot on her chest. Leaned hard.

  “You shrug off bullets easy enough.” He glanced at the charred wreckage of her thighs. “But fire? Well, that seems to stitch you up just dandy. Some might call that ironic, darlin’, given the flames waitin’ for you when this life is over. Which is now, by the way.”

  He drew a long knife from his boot.

  “Now. Let’s see just how much bleedin’ you can do afore you’re done.”

  Lemon sprinted along the Gibson’s deck, hand locked with Eve’s. Cricket was riding on Eve’s back, stuffed inside a satchel with a bunch of tools and spare parts. Kaiser ran out in front, barking urgently, knocking peeps out of the way. Lem heard the sounds of distant gunfire, the crowd thinning out as people ducked inside their shanties and tents. A faint whistle. Calls for the Freebooters.

  “Where we goin’?” Lemon gasped.

  “Just keep running!” Eve replied.

  They bolted across a wobbling footbridge to a huge oil tanker, Lemon again making the mistake of looking down. The street below was an open-air market, everything from salvaged toys to rad-free water to strips of unidentified meat being haggled over in the dusty throng. Eve dragged Lemon through the crush, following the sound of Kaiser’s barking. The press, the heat, above all, the noise were almost overwhelming. And beneath it all, Lemon fancied she heard someone shouting.

  “Ana!”

  Cricket poked his bobblehead up from Eve’s satchel. “You hear that?”

  Lem turned to look behind them, simply too short to see over the mob. She pulled free from Evie’s grip, crawled up a rusting ladder for a better view. Peering back the way they’d run, she spotted Ezekiel, forcing his way through the gaggle of automata and logika and humanity’s dregs. No sign of that bounty hunter in pursuit.

  “Dimples!” she yelled, waving. “You okay?”

  Ezekiel finally made it to the oil tanker as Lem hopped down onto the deck. Not even pausing to explain, the lifelike grabbed her hand with his prosthetic, Evie’s hand with his other, and just kept running. Dragging them onto a junction between the tanker’s forecastle and a tangled nest of shipping containers, consulting the lopsided signpost.

  THE BRASS

  SAMSARA

  RED SHORE

  THE BILGE

  “Where’s Preacher?” Evie asked.

  “With Hope. We need to go. Now.”

  “. . . You just left her there with him?”

  “Hope can handle herself. She told me to leave.” The lifelike’s eyes were wild as he scanned the signs, glancing over his shoulder every few moments into the milling crowd.

  “Zeke, I—”

  “Ana, I’m not losing you again! Now help me figure this maze out.”

  “Where we goin’, Dimples?” Lemon asked.

  “Wheelhouse. Hope said we can get transport there.”

  “Can’t we just grab a pedal cab?” Eve asked.

  “Um . . .” Lemon shoved her hands into her pockets. “We got no scratch.”

  “You had a handful of credstiks just last night!” Cricket cried.

  “I was lulling them into a false sense of security! I had four kings, I told you!”

  “You mean you lost our entire bank gambling with kids?”

  “‘Our’ bank? I don’t remember you cutting any pockets, you little fug.”

  “I swear, the next time someone calls me little, I’m going to blow my—”

  “All right, all right,” Ezekiel said. “Let’s just figure out how to get there on foot.”

  Lemon squinted at the directions, tilting her head in case they made more sense that way.

  WHEELHOUSE

  “Erm . . .”

  “They’re Roman numerals,” Evie said, pointing. “Look. Head five ships southeast, east nine ships, down one level. That’s the Wheelhouse.”

  “Who the hells knows Roman numerals anymore, Riotgrrl? I mean, what use is that knowledge, in terms of your average postapocalyptic hellscape?”

  “Quite a lot, apparently,” Cricket said.

  Evie winked. “Mad for the old myths, me.”

  “Let’s go,” Ezekiel said.

  The quartet dashed off into the crowd, Kaiser hot on
their heels.

  Two ships over, Preacher stepped out onto the deck of the Gibson. Cleaning a long knife on a bloody rag.

  “Quite a lot, apparently,” he mused.

  The bounty hunter stared out over Armada, absentmindedly polishing his blade.

  “Drop the shank!” a voice bellowed. “Drop it, and get down on the goddamn floor!”

  Preacher sighed. Looked sidelong at the squad of Freebooter bullyboys gathering all around him. Seemed the neighbors hadn’t appreciated the ruckus.

  “Mmmf,” he grunted.

  The Freebooters were clad in piecemeal armor, made of hubcaps and Kevlar, strips of tire rubber and plates of scrap metal. But the guns they carried were the business—greasy automatics with enough punch to slow him up for a bit. Two of them even had flamethrowers. There were a dozen. More on the way, if his aural implants were anything to go by (and, yes, they were). Preacher didn’t really feel like a tussle, despite the blasphemy.

  “Y’all obviously got no clue who I am,” he said.

  “I know you’re gonna be a lot shorter, you don’t hit the deck now!”

  Preacher frowned, scoped the Freebooter leader. He was wearing old football armor riveted with plate steel. His skull- and-crossbones bandanna was pulled up over his face, but the bounty hunter could tell he was barely old enough to shave.

  Kids these days . . .

  “Tell you what, son,” Preacher said. “I’m gonna reach into my coat. Nice and slow, like. And I’m gonna pull out the warrant I got for the missy I’m chasin’, who, I might point out, is beating feet farther from my current whereabouts as we jaw here.”

  Preacher licked his split lips, spat bloody.

  “You’re gonna notice a Daedalus Technologies seal on this warrant. You’re gonna figure out I’m in this pig’s sphincter of a town on Corp business. The Corp. The one that supplies the juice to Armada’s grid. You’re gonna conclude the missy I’m chasin’ is wanted by that same Corp and that you’re wasting said Corp’s valuable time. And you’re gonna mumble a big ol’ apology, you’re gonna order your boy to hand over that flamethrower there and, last, you’re gonna step the hell out of my way. We understand each other?”