“This is probably gonna hurt,” the slimeball muttered as an afterthought. “It’s just the way I roll.”
“Start the engine,” Charley suggested, trying to keep the panic from her voice. “It turns me on.”
“Whatever,” Tando said, activating the engine. The D23 throbbed at Charley’s back, building quickly. Just as Tando was about to press himself down on her body she rolled across the bonnet and climbed into the driver’s seat.
Before Tando had the awareness to kill the prop bulb Charley slammed on the accelerator, pinning Tando brutally against the chrome wall. When she backed away the shiny surface was slick with scarlet. Tando’s body crumpled to the floor, his body shattered in several places.
Charley couldn’t help but whoop in delight as she backed up to the drop lift and prepared to run down the garage doors. An alarm sounded throughout the basement - probably calibrated to detect Tando’s life signs. That was good - the prick was dead.
Charley gunned the prop bulb a second time and struck the doors at high speed. For a moment she thought they were too strong but the D23’s titanium strongbar held firm. The rock crawler smashed its way into the quiet early morning street and almost careened into the opposite house. Charley chuckled to herself as she took control of the beast. Only then did she notice her breasts were hanging out - she popped them back in with a maniacal grin. It reminded her that she was wearing a ridiculous dress that should be burned immediately. She raced her way to the hotel and left the crawler running hot in the street. She was relieved to find her weapons were still stashed under the mattress and even more relieved to find no one had stolen the crawler in the few seconds she was gone.
The next stop was the rented locker where Silverton’s body had been stored. She wrinkled her nose when she wrenched open the door - the dead pirate was beginning to smell pretty bad. Luckily the crawler had a separate gear compartment at the back. Once the body was secure Charley made one last stop at an all-night kiosk near the night markets. With the rest of her money she purchased a basic model wrist pad with 24 hours of functionality. She told herself that one day she’d be able to buy one outright and not have to worry about renting days at a time like all the other poor folk were forced to do. Right now she needed the wrist pad to make that call to the Galactic Office of Names to confirm the identity that would allow her to access Silverton’s loot cache. She also bought a gallon of fresh water. There was no way of knowing its availability high in the dusty mountains.
Once the wrist pad had been activated and the water stowed in the back seat, Charley wasted no time in taking a north road out of town. The D23’s nav screen was detailed and precise, guiding Charley through the quieter sections of the town’s northern boroughs.
What kind of heat could Charley expect from Tando’s demise? It was hard to say. On the one hand he was a prominent citizen and his cars were probably registered. On the other, law enforcement on Abeyas was infamously lax. The only way police resources would be spent on hunting Charley down was if some relative or friend coughed up some coin in bribes. Charley doubted any of Tando’s friends liked him that much.
No, it was fairly certain that Charley’s way was clear. She smiled as the eastern horizon took on a pink tinge and suggested a brand new day of discovery. The perfect scenario was the means of getting off this hellish planet she called home. Flushed with happy endorphins, Charley settled into her seat and allowed Tando’s preferred deep trance music to reverberate through the sound system.
Charley drove for several hours along the salt pans north of Zeba. The Dusty Mountains rose in the distance, soft and indistinct in the uncertain dawn. Charley killed Tando’s music and let her mind drift. It felt great to be on the road again. It was especially satisfying to be a woman in motion again. Her time in Zeba had threatened to derail her quest, but it seemed the luck of Inness was on her side again. She mouthed a little prayer of thanks. The day grew warm and the pan was silent. The only other traffic Charley saw was the odd mineral juggernaut on the eastern horizon. They were traveling south to the factory outside Zeba. Even from this distance they seemed huge. Charley almost wished she could see one up close.
She considered the mountain range as it got larger as the day dragged on. All she knew about the Dusty Mountains was that there was a huge mining operation. If possible she wanted to avoid human contact. Then again, she was sure Silverton had established his loot cache as far as possible from the mine. It just suited his personality.
Glancing down, Charley realized her boobs had come free from her dress yet again. She skidded to a halt, raising a tall plume of dust. She opened the door and stepped out to change back into her humble linen shift. As she was pulling off the second thigh-high boot, a wolf whistle erupted from the backseat of the D23. Charley stepped back, alarmed. The whistle came again, clear and shrill in the still desert air.
“What the fuck …?”
Charley risked a glance inside the crawler. All manner of trash was piled on the floor. Shell casings, cologne, porn magazines, a blinking object. Charley took a closer look at that last one. It came to life, humming and whirring loudly.
“Pick me up will ya?” it asked belligerently.
Charley wasn’t sure if she wanted to do that at all, but eventually relented. The thing was the size of a shoe box, only it had wheels on one side and a circular ‘face’ on one end. With a shock Charley watched as a primitive digital face actually appeared on the circular end. It was like the thing had been made several centuries ago.
“About fucking time, bitch,” the object said aggressively, the digital, pixelated mouth moving as it spoke.
Charley yelped and dropped the weird box to the salt pan. It landed on its wheels and began butting her ankle in apparent rage.
“Took you this long to find me? Man, you’re seriously dumb. Still wanna fuck you, though.”
“What. The fuck. Are you?” Charley said through gritted teeth.
“Names FIGJAM, bitch.”
“What’s ‘Figjam’?”
“Fuck I’m Good Just Ask Me.” Came the irritated reply.
“Really …?” Charley asked, not sure if she had time for this. She considered leaving the rude thing on the pan.
“I’m a PalBot,” FIGJAM explained. “That dude you wasted was a total jerk but he’s the one who bought me.”
“A PalBot,” Charley repeated softly. She’d heard of these things but never seen one until now. Where some rich folk in the galaxy got to hang with fully rendered and sophisticated androids, the people of Abeyas were stuck with primitive robots used for cleaning, sucking and general uselessness. PalBots fit into the latter category. They were rudimentary bots that responded over time to their owner’s personalities, slowly becoming an approximation of them.
“Great, so you’re a slimy rapist too,” Charley said with disdain.
“A PalBot can’t choose his master, bitchface,” came the husky reply. “Are you sure I can’t fuck you?”
“Yes, I am sure,” Charley said firmly, tossing the harmless PalBot into the backseat. “And if you speak again I’m gonna blow your fucking head off.”
14
Over the next hour the first peaks of the Dusty Mountains loomed large in Charley’s viewscreen. She didn’t see a single mineral juggernaut the whole time and guessed they didn’t travel from this part of the range. Foothills began to appear on both sides of the beaten path, occasionally with low, scrubby vegetation. It wasn’t much, just hardy saltbush, but any kind of green matter was new as far as Charley was concerned. Sandflower Downs had lopped down their last Desert Oak years ago.
As Charley ventured further into the foothills the track became steeper. Before long the D23 was climbing at 45 degrees across loose scree. If it wasn’t for the thick, customized tires, Charley was sure she’d slip back down the slope to be dashed against some boulder.
She also found that driving in the mountains required a certain skill she had yet to acquire. She frequently dented the D23 as she n
egotiated a track that hugged the sides of the mountains rising all around. Still, there was no experience like hands-on experience and before long Charley had got the hang of controlling the crawler on rugged terrain. It was a hardy vehicle, a genuine explorer-class beast. Charley had chosen her mark well. She wondered what level of uproar had been created in Zeba over Tando’s death. The sad reality was the authorities would probably put his death down to a violent whore and leave it at that. Some things never changed on Abeyas.
Charley concentrated hard on the twists and turns of the mountain track. She had no time to appreciate the imposing peaks on all sides. Thankfully the PalBot remained quiet from the backseat. The last thing she needed was the critical alter-ego of the creep she’d just wasted.
After an hour of steady, painstaking ascent through the mountains, Charley was glad to emerge into a wide, U-shaped valley. The going was much easier here, for the loose scree surface had been replaced by flat slabs of rock. Along the edges of the valley boulders were piled high. With a start Charley noticed a winged creature circling a distant peak. It wasn’t a bird of prey, it was something else. Before Charley could get a closer look it had disappeared.
Charley pressed her foot to the accelerator as she continued through the valley. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she had a vague sense of disquiet about this place. If she didn’t know any better, she might have thought she was being watched. She knew she might be feeling a little paranoid. It was just that … this valley was the perfect place for an ambush.
On cue a shot rang out over the valley, audible even above the grinding buzz of the D23. A bullet reverberated off the armored windshield. Charley’s first thought was relief that Tando had been so obsessive about his cars that he hadn’t spared any expense on the rock crawler.
A second shot hit the windshield. Whoever was firing was a damn good shot. She slowed down so she could get a visual on her attacker. There, high among the rocks. Two misshapen heads, lined with scales and cold, reptilian eyes. Sand skinks. Although Charley had never seen one, they were known to exist out in the deep salt pans and mountain ranges. They were reptilian humanoids with a very basic intelligence. Humans had once tried to foster an alliance with them but they were by nature a hunting species unsuited to civilization. Or perhaps, Charley thought, they were unsuited to the way humans thought they should live. In any case, they were marginalized on Abeyas and left to rot in their diminishing hunting grounds.
That kind of treatment made sand skinks a cranky, cantankerous bunch. It was no surprise they were taking potshots at Charley with what must have been a high powered rifle of some kind. But neither of those two skinks was carrying a weapon. A third shot again hit the windshield flush and this time it cracked. Charley hit the accelerator, realizing she wasn’t going to survive by hanging around. The D23 groaned up the valley admirably, but it wasn’t built for speed. A fourth shot shattered the entire windshield. Plexiglass rained on Charley’s lap and she almost careened into a rock face.
“Get us out of here, bitch!” yelled the PalBot.
Charley turned around viciously. “My name. Is fucking. Charley.”
The move saved her life. A rifle blast scorched the smooth leather seat where her head had just been. She spun round and kept her head down. The next shot punctured the water tank on the backseat. FIGJAM squealed as water began pouring on its head.
“Ah! Make it stop, sweetheart!”
Charley urged the D23 under a huge rock overhang and was confronted with a forking track. Tossing a glance at Silverton’s coordinates, she chose the west fork, heading along a dusty ridge lined with saltbush. No further shots were fired, and Charley dared to believe that she’d left the skink snipers far behind. Still, she continued at full speed for several minutes, glad to have a relatively straight ridge line to work with. Eventually slowing to a stop, Charley stepped out to inspect the damage. Of course, the windshield was zap, but more importantly, her water was gone. The backseat was drenched. Charley tossed the plastic tank away with disgust.
“Fuck!”
Of all the things those beasts could’ve hit. And of course her mouth was bone dry after a hard day’s driving.
“Don’t worry love, you can always suck on my fat dick,” came FIGJAM’s helpful suggestion.
Charley stared daggers at the PalBot. “Firstly, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but if there’s one thing you don’t have, it’s a fat dick,” she began quietly. “Secondly, I believe we had an agreement that you would shut the fuck up unless I addressed you directly. Failure to do so would result in scrap metal. It would only take me a couple of seconds.”
“Sure, sure,” FIGJAM enthused. “Your tits wobble when you’re angry. I dig it.”
Charley raised her right blaster.
“I dig it,” FIGJAM said more urgently. “I really do.”
“Good,” Charley said tiredly, looking out over the hazy mountain range.
She checked Silverton’s coordinates and was surprised to find that his cache was actually very close to her current location. First thing was first though - she needed water, otherwise she wasn’t gonna find the loot cache. Period.
“Stay here,” she told FIGJAM, and immediately felt silly.
Blaster poised, Charley began clambering over sharp rocks. The ridge seemed peaceful enough. Free of sand skinks at least. Not far to the north the two rocky bluffs rose to either side of the track, creating a steep-sided gorge. It was in this direction that Charley stumbled, hoping for a muddy puddle or trickle of water. Anything to slake the burning thirst in her throat.
High up above the peak to her right she heard a strange squeak. It was that high-flying bird again, wheeling around in agitation. Except it wasn’t a bird - it was a black, leathery bat. Charley was amazed at its sheer size. The thing must’ve have had a wingspan longer than the D23’s length and the weight of a large man.
“Happy for you to stay up there,” she mumbled quietly as she picked her way among the boulders. She was heartened to hear the sound of trickling water coming from the gorge wall to her right. Her pulse quickening, she cleared away a vibrant saltbush to find a crawl space large enough for a human. A slow trickle of water dropped from the edge of the hole. Charley positioned her mouth under the trickle and lapped gratefully at the water. It wasn’t exactly a torrent, but at length she felt like she’d had enough for the time being.
Feeling less woolly-headed now, she considered the hole in the rock and had a thought - could this be Silverton’s loot cache. There was only one way to find out. Feeling a strange sense of foreboding, she huddled low into the crawl space and began dragging herself through.
15
After ten yards the tunnel hadn’t widened and her light had all but faded. With a burst of inspiration she reached into her pellet case and rummaged through the various colors. She needed to shimmy back a few feet so she could distinguish them in the faint light. The pellet she’d used on the jeep back at Boss Pete’s compound had been green. Green for poison gas. Was there some kind of logic to the pirate pellets? What she needed right now was a flashbang. Something to illuminate the tunnel and show the way. What color would that be? White? Yellow? In the end Charley went with the yellow, only because she remembered Silverton saying something about smoke, which would probably be white.
She rolled a yellow pellet along the tunnel and buried her head in her arms. There was a loud fizzing sound up the tunnel and she waited another second for the initial flare to die away. She looked up and smiled. Not only had the pellet been a flashbang, it showed the tunnel opening out into a wider cavern just twenty yards ahead. Charley took the remaining distance at high speed, glad to be making progress and hopeful that the loot cache lay in the cavern.
As she got closer she could see a pair of blinking lights set into the far wall. This was it! That must be a security panel. She cleared the tunnel and stood, glad to be able to stretch her back. By the fading light of the flashbang she could see the lateral walls. The rock there lo
oked weird, folded into patterns like vertical drapes. She stepped closer to the red lights, then decided to do a double take. That wasn’t rock. They weren’t walls. Every inch of space to either side of Charley was occupied by leviathan bats. They were hanging upside down from strange protrusions near the cavern ceiling. Judging from the various squeaks erupting around her, Charley had probably disturbed their slumber.
Many years ago, when Charley was just a street urchin in Sandflower Downs, a cool stranger had passed through. He’d worn a fancy utility suit and had an air of violence about him. He’d come to town to collect the bounty of several men staying at the whorehouse. A man of violence indeed, except that he was very kind to the little girl who hung out under piles of trash.
“Kid,” he had told Charley on his way out of town, “when in doubt, fire first. It’s nicer to regret being wrong than regret being dead.”
So Charley drew both blasters and fired indiscriminately into both walls. She raked the colony good and hard, enjoying the meaty thud of her plasma blasts. The cavern filled with a chorus of anguished squeaks and other sonar related pings. Several bats flew at Charley at once, knocking her clean off her feet. One enterprising beast locked its jaws around her ankle, biting hard. Charley yelped, firing at the bat at point blank range. Her body was buffeted around by the bats jostling to attack. The cavern was a chaos of leathery limbs that packed quite a punch. The high-pitched squeak infected Charley’s mind, threatened to envelop her in panic. She felt herself being dragged across the cavern by the bat at her ankle. She felt a wetness there and knew she was being eaten. In savage desperation she waved her arms, firing as she wheeled. Her right blaster maxed out, falling silent just when she needed it most. Charley yanked herself free of the feeding bat and crawled back to the hole. Luckily several bats were still flying crazy, panicked circles and she had some semblance of cover as she made her way. She reached the hole just as two bats made lunges at her feet. She hauled herself through and the creatures reluctantly let her go.
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