by Isaac Hooke
“That’s perfect,” Rhea said.
Will nodded. “But slightly dangerous.”
Rhea glanced at the overhead map and watched as the green zone slowly contracted as the satellites continued their orbit. Their current position would soon be exposed.
“Horatio, we’re waiting,” she said.
“Coming,” Horatio sent.
Movement drew her eye upward, and she raised her pistol: but it was only Gizmo, skirting the gap between buildings. The drone promptly landed on the adjacent rooftop, obviously not wanting to remain exposed overlong. The craft was too small to be detected by the satellites, but enemy drones could still spot it.
“I’m here,” Horatio sent.
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the robot emerging from the south exit at a sprint.
Will promptly crawled into the runnel, sliding underneath the overhang. Rhea and the others followed. Horatio brought up the rear.
The surface below her formed a half cylinder, and was smooth on one side, like a culvert without the corrugations, but completely jagged in the area immediately beneath the overhang. The whole runnel was also very shallow. She only had to lift her head a short distance to touch the overhang. Will and Chuck had it worse; their heads and elbows constantly scraped against the protruding asphalt as they advanced. Because of that, Rhea was a bit worried they’d end up collapsing a section, but so far, the structure held up.
The jagged asphalt underneath her dug into her clothing, and occasionally a section snagged, forcing her to pause and undo it. After a few times of that she stopped bothering with it, and just let her clothing rip.
She was well aware as she crawled into the “no-go” zone. It was almost surreal, knowing that all it would take to raise the alarm was a subtle shift to the left, to the part of the runnel the overhang didn’t cover.
At one point during the crawl, the protruding asphalt directly above her shifted slightly, and asphalt particles fell onto her. For a moment she thought the entire section was going to collapse, and she quickened her pace.
Glancing over her shoulder, she was relieved to see it had not. “Watch that section,” she transmitted to Renaldo and Horatio.
As she neared the far side of the street, Will passed underneath a particular low section of overhang.
“It’s drooping,” Will transmitted. “Watch yourself, Chuck.”
Chuck kept his body flattened as he crawled beneath that overhang, but his head and back still rubbed against it, Rhea noticed.
The instant he was past, the asphalt collapsed behind him, forming a short gap in the runnel.
Chuck glanced over his shoulder. “Oh no. Warden… I…”
“It’s not a problem,” Rhea said. “Horatio, what are the chances of the satellites picking us up, if each of us is visible only for a few moments?”
“Low,” Horatio admitted. “Given the resolution requirements. But there’s still a chance.”
“I was afraid of that,” Rhea said. She frowned, considering the gap. Then she crawled to it and ripped the cape free from her wardrobe.
She pointed her pistol at the edge of the overhang before the gap and dialed the power output way down. She fired twice, slightly melting the asphalt at each spot, and then quickly pressed the edges of the cape to the surface. As the asphalt dried, the fabric became glued. She released it, and to her satisfaction, it remained attached.
“Chuck, catch,” she said, tossing the other end of the cape to him.
Chuck grabbed it, and then copied her example: he reduced the intensity of his pistol and fired it at the intact portion of the overhang on his side, then glued the cape to the molten areas, forming a roof over the gap.
“Let’s go,” Rhea said.
She crawled beneath the cape, being careful not to touch it, knowing it would be all too easy to rip away. The debris underneath her was even rockier than usual, thanks to the fresh collapse, but she made it across without issue. As did Renaldo and Horatio.
“There’s still a chance the satellites might notice the collapse, and the replacement fabric we erected,” Horatio sent.
“Yeah, what kind of a chance, point one percent?” Rhea asked.
“About that,” Horatio replied.
“I can live with those odds,” she said.
They reach the far side of the street and emerged from the tunnel next to the adjacent building, whose south side was still in the green. They hurried forward, making their way to the target building, and keeping within that green zone the whole way.
No scouts came to investigate.
They reached the target building and entered through a gaping hole in one wall. They found an unblocked stairwell and took it to the rooftop. The superstructures allowed the group to low crawl to one of the far walls, and when they reached it, they found a portion of the wall had broken off, giving them an unobstructed view of the partially collapsed skyscraper they had left behind.
Gizmo assumed a position on the rooftop of the opposite building while Rhea and the others hunkered down on the south sides of the various superstructures, so as to keep hidden from the passing satellites.
Rhea propped up against a gooseneck vent and settled in for the long wait. Will crawled to her side and produced her dismembered arm.
“Could you use a hand?” he quipped.
14
An hour went by without much fanfare.
In the first ten minutes of the second hour, the enemy scouts, moving from structure to structure, finally explored the parking garage, and after fifteen minutes of frenetic activity, with craft seemingly coming in from all sides of the ruined city, things calmed down.
Most of the drones landed on the rooftops immediately adjacent to the parking garage, and there kept watch; the remainder vanished inside the garage itself.
Will worked on reattaching her arm the whole time. It took him the full hour and required that he utilize his pistol as a makeshift soldering iron at certain points, but he succeeded. He was a skilled salvager after all, a man capable of reviving a near-death cyborg, rebooting her mind-machine interface, and installing a new body—so reattaching an arm with substandard equipment should have been nothing to him. And indeed, it was.
Some portions of the arm near the shoulder joint were still bent out of shape, and the key servomotors there had suffered some damage, so she couldn’t move it through the usual range of motion, but it sufficed for now. At least she had the X2-59 back. That was most important to her, strangely enough.
When Will finished working on her arm, he helped her don her camo top once more. The long sleeve slid over the limb, hiding the dents and scratches in the metal. She lowered her hood and gazed out into the street once more, waiting.
A half hour passed with no further observable activity at the parking garage.
“Wonder what they’re doing in there?” Chuck sent. He was seated on the south side of a small rooftop utility box, two meters from her gooseneck vent. While he could have easily spoken to her normally from that distance, he utilized the comm in order to keep his voice volume way down. Probably wasn’t necessary, but an over-abundance of caution was never a bad thing.
“Forensics,” Horatio transmitted from another vent beside her, this one rectangular.
“Maybe they’re trying to decide if we’ve been devoured or not,” Renaldo broadcast. He was lying against the wall that enclosed the rooftop itself, near the gap that gave a clear view of the parking garage.
“Oh, they’ve already concluded we’re dead, no doubt,” Will sent. He sat beneath a gooseneck vent directly across from Rhea. “They’re just staying to recover as much tech and materials as they can from the tankers. Anything to keep it out of the hands of us honest salvagers, after all. Because there certainly won’t be any water left. Not after those Tasins finished with the tanks.”
Will looked at her, as if expecting her to add to the conversation, but she ignored him, and instead returned her gaze to the gap in the wall, and the parking garage b
eyond.
She found her eyes involuntarily drifting toward the distant horizon. Toward Aradne. The city that had caused her so much grief. The city that had tried to extinguish an entire settlement. She doubted justice would ever come to those responsible. The city council. The mayor.
Unless I take justice into my own hands.
No. She wasn’t a vigilante. She had enough people trying to kill her as it was. Last thing she needed was to put herself on some international Most Wanted list.
Will low-crawled to her side and propped himself up against the same gooseneck vent.
She glanced at him for a moment, then returned her gaze to the distant horizon.
“What’s up?” Will said softly. “You’re awfully quiet.”
She sighed, holding her eyes to the horizon. “What am I? Why are people trying to kill me? Is it because I’m not human? Because I’m a cyborg? Or is it something else? Something I did in my past life. Something… unforgivable.”
“Only Veil knows the reason why,” Will said.
She finally looked at him. “The Scorpion told me there’s a price on my head.”
Will pursed his lips and nodded. “Set by Veil?”
She looked away. “It wasn’t clear.”
“If there’s a price…” Will began.
“Then there could be more than one assassin trying to kill me,” Rhea said.
“Yeah,” Will agreed. “Not something that, uh, most people would want.”
“We know Anderson was employed by Veil,” she said. “But The Scorpion could be working for someone else.”
“Maybe he’s an independent bounty hunter,” Will told her. “Someone posted your bounty, and he’s just one of the many applicants for the job. Veil could be another.”
Rhea had nothing to add to that. It was all speculation at this point.
“Bounty hunting is a profession almost as popular as salvager,” Will said.
“Salvaging isn’t very popular…” Rhea told him.
“My point exactly,” Will said. “Most bounties I’ve seen have been for the heads of bandits. Well, not necessarily the heads… ‘dead or alive’ seems to be a common word choice I’ve seen on the digital postings. So it’s not a job for the weak of heart. You have to be willing to kill, since I guarantee you most bandits aren’t going to let you capture them alive. That’s one of the reasons why the profession never appealed to me.”
“You have access to these digital postings you mention?” she asked. “You’ve seen my name there?”
“Not exactly,” Will said. “I haven’t checked in a long while.”
“You’ll have to show me how, sometime,” Rhea told him. She paused. “You’d think the authorities would have caught up with me by now if I was wanted for crimes. I haven’t always had my public profile disabled, or my comm node programmed to ignore third party connection requests…” It was technically illegal to do either while inside a settlement or city, but that hadn’t stopped certain slum residents.
“You’d think the authorities would have, yes,” Will agreed. “Except you’re forgetting that we assigned you a new ID when we rebooted your brain. Giving you a clean slate. There’s only two ways to do that: wipe a mind clean or transfer it into a new mind-machine interface.”
“It’s too bad we couldn’t retrieve my old ID,” she said.
Will looked away.
She wanted to ask him to reveal what he knew, to tell her what the mark she once wore on her forehead meant, but she knew he never would. It troubled her, because it made her believe the mark must have represented something really terrible, for him to clam up like that, let alone sand it away on sight.
She sighed, and Will rested a hand on her shoulder. It felt good. Not in the way that a lover’s hand might feel, but comforting, like an old friend’s.
“Do you think Aradne will ever restore the settlement’s water supply?” she asked.
“We already know they will,” Will replied. “But the real question is, how many dehydration deaths on the part of the slums will it take?”
“Exactly what I want to avoid,” Rhea told him. “We lost enough lives when the bioweapons attacked the settlement. Such a despicable act. It almost makes me want to…”
“What, take justice into your own hands?” Will asked.
She smiled, shaking her head. “You know me too well. It’s a terrible thought, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Will told her sternly, dropping his hand. “Don’t let it cross your mind again. Because even if you’re successful, you’re only dooming yourself to a lifetime of running. Killing a public official is a crime punishable by death.”
“Who says I want to kill him?” she said. “Just rough him up a little.”
Will frowned, then laughed. He turned away, shaking his head, and gazed into the street below. He seemed to be scanning the buildings. “You think he’s close-by? The Scorpion?”
“He’s out there, somewhere,” Rhea said. “Close or far. If he’s close, he’s watching us no doubt.”
“Let him watch,” Will said. “He can watch all he wants. As long as he doesn’t attack.”
“If he finds a weapon, he’ll use it,” she said. “You remember his first words to me? ‘I had you in my sniper sites so many times.’ Words that send a chill down my back just recalling them.”
“You have to keep in mind, he’s probably trying to avoid the Aradne security forces, just like us,” Will said. “When the security forces set up shop in the Outlands, the first thing they do is quarantine the area. No one is allowed in or out. Not salvagers. And certainly not assassins.”
“Maybe he’s in league with them,” Renaldo said, coming up beside Will at a crawl. He leaned against the same gooseneck vent. “How’s it hanging? You guys looked like you were having an interesting conversation off the channel.”
“A private conversation,” Will said.
“I doubt The Scorpion is in league with the city,” Rhea told the Wardenite. “Assassins operate outside the law. And… well actually, you know what? I take it back. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if the security forces were helping him, considering the Aradne city council tried to destroy Rust Town. The mayor and his merry men aren’t afraid to skirt the law.”
“No, they’re not,” Will agreed.
The three fell silent. Chuck shifted nearby, grimacing as if in pain.
“How’s your side?” Rhea asked over the comm, recalling that he’d taken a hit during the run to the parking garage.
Renaldo crossed his arms. “That’s right, talk to him, now that I’ve only just come to your side.”
“I’m fine,” Chuck transmitted. “Told you earlier, patched it up.”
Rhea gave Renaldo an annoyed glance, then crawled across the rooftop, staying to the south side of the intervening pipes and vents until she reached the utility box that harbored Chuck.
She straightened and reached for his shirt, but he recoiled.
“Let me take a look,” she insisted.
“It’s not necessary,” Chuck said.
She glared at him. “You’re going to turn down your Warden?”
With a sigh, Chuck raised his shirt. A crooked bandage covered his ribcage; it was secured with medical tape wrapped haphazardly around the torso. The rushed nature of the application wasn’t surprising, given that he’d completed it while under attack by drones.
“Do you still have your kit?” Rhea asked him.
They had all carried first aid kits in the cargo pockets of their pants for the mission.
“No,” Chuck replied. “Left it in the semi.”
Rhea nodded. She still had her own kit and intended to change his bandage.
Rhea unwound the tape, preparing herself for the worst. When she had removed the last of it, the bandage remained affixed to the wound. She started to slowly peel it away when Will sent: “Careful.”
She stopped, giving Will a curious glance.
“It’s probably glued there by dried blood,”
Will explained. “You peel it off, you reopen the wound.”
“Could be the wound is already open,” Renaldo sent. “And the plasma itself is acting as the glue.”
“Are you a medic?” Will asked.
“No,” Renaldo admitted.
“Then shut up,” Will sent.
“But neither are you!” Renaldo complained.
Will growled over the comm.
Rhea hesitated, then made up her mind. It was probably for the best if she let an experienced medical practitioner examine the wound. Changing the bandage might be a bad idea, especially if all she did was reopen the wound. She didn’t notice a smell of any kind after all, so that was a good sign at least.
She pressed the upper edge of the bandage back into place, then rewrapped the tape much more neatly around Chuck’s torso.
When it was done, Chuck lowered his shirt.
“A drone did that?” she asked him, transmitting over the comm so that the rest of the team could hear.
“Uh huh,” he replied. “Glancing glow from a plasma blast.”
“You’re sure it was just a glancing blow?” she pressed.
“I don’t think he’d be alive right now if it was a direct hit,” Will sent.
She nodded. “You’re probably right.” She rested a hand on Chuck’s knee. “You’re going to have to book some quality time with a rejuvenist when we get back. After the doctor finishes properly patching you up.”
“Maybe I want to keep the scar,” Chuck said. “To remind me.”
She smiled. “Hey, whatever makes you happy, my friend.”
She low-crawled back to her previous position, since it had a better view of the parking garage three streets away and propped up against the gooseneck vent once more.
Another half hour passed. Then drones began to emerge en masse from the parking garage. Each of them carried a payload of some kind. She zoomed in: it looked like Will was right about what the drones had been doing in there, because those payloads appeared to be the most valuable parts salvaged from the semis.
