Felipe drew his brows together, looking confused.
Low spread her arms. “They’re neither self-aware nor mere machines.”
Valeria still looked perplexed and Astrid lost. Well, they were hardly alone; many people failed to grasp the subtleties of the ecobots’ mission. There was nothing to do about that now.
Shuska’s voice spilled through the radio Valeria held. “I think I got the bot to agree that it can shoot at the ground if I ask it to. It won’t shoot people but it will scare them.”
“Perfect.” Astrid raised an eyebrow. “Would now be a good time?”
Lou hated the idea. “We’re trying to prove that the ecobots aren’t a threat to them.”
Felipe stared at her. “Something needs to threaten them.”
“Someone.” Valeria sighed audibly. “I’ll go outside.”
“They’re armed,” Felipe warned. “Are you going to sing to their guns?”
“Maybe I will. Give me a minute. Lou?” She handed Lou her radio.
“Sure. I got it.” Was Valeria giving her command, or just a radio? She would take it as command. “At least no one is hurt.”
Felipe laughed, breaking a little of the tension. “Just Angel.”
She smiled. “I already heard that story.”
“How many weapons did you see out there?” Felipe asked.
“A few rifles. But I wouldn’t see pistols or knives. There could be a lot.” Pots rattled from inside the kitchen. Lou glanced that way. “Is someone cooking dinner?”
“Cheryl is heating up chicken stew. People need to eat.”
Lou nodded.
“We’re making enough for them.” Astrid gestured toward the crowd outside. “Maybe after Henrietta arrives, they’ll settle down for dinner.”
Lou wanted to ask them if they’d lost their minds, but instead she said, “I heard Valeria is waiting for Henrietta. What do you know about that?”
“Valeria thinks she’ll hate this as much as we do, and she’ll stop it. It’s wasteful. Coffee?”
But wasn’t Henrietta the one who ordered people killed? Or was that only Agnes? She noted that everyone seemed calm. But then they had been attacked three times in the past. “Coffee would be great. We’ll help.”
“That’s why we invited you,” Felipe snapped. “Only now the robots won’t help.”
Shuska must still be listening, since she popped in with an answer. “It’s very hard to make robots kill people.”
“Especially ecobots,” Lou added, since they kept missing the point.
Felipe frowned, and she wondered if he wished Valeria hadn’t invited them. Well, he’d gotten a new barn, assuming it survived the night. Astrid handed her the coffee and she took a sip, the scent and taste both bracing. This was another thing Felipe had gotten. Coffee. Coryn sent it to them, and the first time Astrid had seen a bag in the supply run she’d hugged it.
Lou sipped her coffee while staring out the window, angry. She needed something more active to do than just be pissed off. But what?
The shouting outside intensified for a moment and then slowed down. Coryn keyed her radio. “What happened?” she asked Shuska.
“Someone started a fight.” She almost sounded bored. “There’s a small minority of three who want to attack the house, but the others seem to have come up here to yell and burn a barn.”
“Thanks.” Bless Shuska for her huge pool of exterior calm.
A scraping sound from behind her caught her attention. She turned to see Valeria coming down the steps. She wore black pants, black boots, and a voluminous white shirt. A black cape swirled over the whole outfit. Her hair had been twisted into a bun, and she had applied enough makeup to belong on stage at the bar. She wore dangly earrings that caught even a small amount of light.
She looked as beautiful as she had on stage, as ethereal and strong. She pulled the hood up over her head, wrapped the cape close enough that it hid the white shirt, and took Astrid’s radio. “Shuska,” she said. “I’m coming out the back, and I want to get on the ecobot.”
“On?”
Valeria hurried out, the door barely making a sound as she closed it behind her.
“Now you did it, Felipe,” Astrid said.
“She was going to go anyway.”
Lou headed closer to the window, looking for a way to peer out.
“You’d be better off out there,” Matchiko said. “I can manage in here.”
Lou glanced at the door, back at Matchiko, and then at the door.
“Someone needs to keep her safe,” Astrid whispered.
“Go,” Felipe said. “She won’t care if you do. Maybe she even wants you to.”
He was probably right. Lou slid out the door.
‡ ‡ ‡
Valeria kept her head and blouse covered with her black cloak, making it hard to follow her in the dark. At least Lou knew her general direction. Even though she lost sight of her twice, she was close again when Valeria came up on Shuska and asked, “How do I get up there? On the ecobot?”
The faint light from Shuska’s screen illuminated a cold look on her face.
“It’s okay,” Lou said. “Let her up.”
Shuska waited for Lou to come up beside Valeria. She stared down at them both. “Neither of you should be out here.”
Lou looked up at Shuska. “I’m not going to let anyone destroy our house or our new barn.”
Shuska nodded. “Me either. But don’t be stupid.”
“I need to quiet them.” Valeria spoke with fierce determination. “I’d expected Agnes or even Henrietta to come bring the miscreants home, but they’re not here. So I will do their job.”
Shuska glared at her. “The ecobot won’t obey you.”
Lou spoke up. “But it will obey me. And it will obey you. I’ll go up with her.”
Neither Valeria nor Shuska looked pleased at that.
“You can start,” Lou whispered. “I don’t sing as well as you do anyway.”
Valeria laughed as she scanned the shadows and the dark side of the ecobot. The torches and lights of the protestors were all on the other side.
Shuska shone a thin, dim light at a ladder. “The robot can pick you up, or you can climb up a leg, but it’s less obvious if you use the maintenance ladder.”
Valeria climbed quickly, her black skirt swishing loudly enough that Lou heard it over the raised voices on the far side.
Shuska held Lou back in a brief, tight embrace. “Stay safe. Don’t underestimate an angry mob of white people.”
Lou started up, the rungs hard and cold under her hands, flat and almost as thin as paper. Before she reached the halfway point, Valeria disappeared over the top. Lou found her standing on the crowd-ward edge of the flattest part of the ecobot’s back, right in the middle, shedding her coat.
Apparently no one was looking up. Valeria stood there for some time, waiting to be noticed. When that didn’t happen, she began belting out a song, something about family and food. Lou didn’t recognize it, but apparently the angry crowd below did. Lou slid across the bot’s back and lay down on her stomach, peering over the edge.
The crowd quieted slowly, the way a group of fractious horses in a small pen quiets. One by one.
Valeria finished the song; all of the faces below her were upturned, anger and curiosity and even amazement warring for dominance. She stepped even closer to the edge. “I welcome you to our farm. You are always welcome. But you are not welcome to burn our barns or our home or our animals. This is the place where your food is grown before we bring it down to you, and it is a place that you need.”
A screech came from the back, from a woman. “Traitor!”
“To what?”
“Yourself!”
“Bot Lover.”
Valeria smiled. “I am standing on the back of the robot, using it for a stage.” She lifted her arms, an exaggerated gesture. She turned her fingers down to point at the machine. “This beast.” She stamped her foot on the metal. “This beast i
s strong enough to kill me, to kill you, to kill you all. But it does not. But if we begin to hurt each other, we will draw its attention.”
The crowd shifted restlessly. A few young men in the back elbowed each other.
Lou’s stunner was still in her pocket. She drew it out, primed it, and waited, clutching the radio in her other hand. She sat, breathing carefully, watching.
A tall young man with blonde hair and a black baseball cap stepped forward. “There are enough of us to take the ecobot.”
Lou depressed the bottom for the mike. “Maybe now would be a good time for the ecobot to shoot the ground.”
“Not while you’re on it,” Shuska said.
“Why not?”
“They’ll think you are making it shoot.”
Lou frowned. She usually trusted Shuska, but the people below them looked angrier. How angry would they have to get to shoot at Valeria? Or at her?
Valeria took her skirt bottom in her hand and pulled it up a little, curtseying and bowing. She looked both ridiculous and confident. Brave as hell.
One of the men in the back held up something long and thin. A rifle? “This is not a good night for you to die!” Valeria shouted. “Calm down. Talk with me.”
“No talk!” someone yelled. A woman.
Lou, still seated, shot past the crowd, and for a moment, silence fell.
The radio crackled in her ear. “Someone’s coming.”
A vehicle rocked its way up the rutted road. Lou stared at the low headlights as they cut through the darkness. She hadn’t seen any working cars in Chelan.
“Henrietta,” someone said.
The car turned out to be a jeep, with tall rugged wheels and seating for four that was occupied by two. Sofia jumped down from the driver’s seat and walked around, holding her hand out to help a very old woman out of the car.
Lou glanced up at Valeria and whispered, “What’s Sofia doing there?”
Valeria shook her head. “She has always loved the wrong people.”
There was no time to ask for clarification. Everyone turned toward the two women, watching the older woman emerge. She was short, maybe even under five feet tall, wearing a simple black dress, with a white hat over silver hair. She moved with stiff determination.
People whispered at her.
She walked over quite close to the ecobot, staring up at Valeria. Fearless. “Performing a stunt, as usual, I see.”
“I am trying to stop your people from doing something they will be very sorry for soon.”
“I see that.” The old woman lifted one of her hands, and it took a breath for Lou to recognize that for a signal.
A shot rang out.
Valeria grabbed her arm, blood running through her fingers. She kept her footing, swaying slightly, eyes wide with shock.
“Now,” Lou told Shuska.
The ecobot slammed its largest foot down into the ground, shaking their perch.
Valeria moaned and sank to a sitting position, shock giving way to a look of surprised betrayal.
Another shot ricocheted off the top of the ecobot.
The drones started to rise, an eerily small army. Two of them tilted up and spat bullets into the ground, sending puffs of dust into the air.
Someone shot at one of the drones, missed.
The drones hummed and buzzed like angry bees.
Lou stood, making sure that she was mostly shielded from the crowd below by one of the robot’s great arms. “I wouldn’t do that.” She thought she’d identified the man who shot Valeria. A squat man, middle aged. Older than most of the crowd. Not the young hothead she would have expected. He still held his gun pointed at the top of the bot.
Henrietta’s arm started up again.
Lou used the ready button and pointed her stunner at the matriarch. It might reach her from here. She squinted, aiming hard.
“No!” Valeria screamed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Lou hesitated; had Valeria screamed at her, or at someone else? Lou dropped her hand, but only a little, keeping the stunner ready.
It had fallen quiet, as if Valeria’s screamed single word had stopped everyone. All she could hear was low conversation and the barely audible whine of the ecobot’s drones in flight.
Lou glanced toward Valeria. She had crumpled to sit on the top of the ecobot, clutching her arm. She scooted toward the edge.
“Stay down,” Lou hissed at her.
“I have to see Henrietta.”
“No.” Lou belly crawled across the far said of the bot toward Valeria. “If you can see them they can see you. With bullets.”
No one was shooting right now. Probably because they couldn’t see either of them. They were lucky the bots were huge.
The chanting and name-calling started again.
“Is your arm okay?”
“I won’t die today.”
Lou smiled. “Good. Me either.”
“Deal.”
Lou keyed her radio. “Shuska?”
“Are you okay?”
“Valeria is hurt. Her arm. Shot. We’re staying down. Keep the drones high.”
“You think I can tell this damned thing what to do?”
“Yes.” Thoughts raced through her head. “Keep the crowd out here. I don’t want them near the house.”
As if they heard her, the voices grew louder, preparatory. Maybe it was her imagination. Preparatory for what?
“What are they doing?” Lou asked.
Felipe answered her from the house. “I think they plan to come here.”
“Can you make this thing keep them back?” Lou asked Shuska.
“I’m trying.”
People below them screamed louder. Pent up adrenaline. Young men trained to fight but denied the chance. Henrietta’s arrival had charged them up.
The drones buzzed lower, swooping just above the crowd.
Lou crawled to where she could see, scraping her right elbow as she clutched the radio. A few people bent away from the drones or walked backward from them. Henrietta stood her ground, staring up at a drone. Half the crowd stayed near her, protective, staring up at what she watched, defiant but quiet.
The looks on their faces were—curious? Hopeful?
One of the drones fired into the ground right between the ragged front line of the crowd and the ecobot.
Everyone took a step back except Henrietta.
“Atta girl,” Lou whispered to the ecobot. Not that it would hear her.
Someone near Henrietta shot at a drone, missed, shot again, and clipped the wing of one of the smaller drones in the swarm above it. It fell, tumbling to the ground.
The other drones massed and buzzed like gigantic, angry insects.
A voice came from behind her. Valeria. “I need to talk to Henrietta.”
Lou hesitated. After the old woman had demanded she be shot? “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t have a better plan. She didn’t have a plan at all. Just a set of objectives. Save her people. Save the house. Save the new barn. Save all the people, no matter what side they were on. She keyed her radio and asked Shuska, “Can you ask the ecobot to capture Henrietta?”
Shuska cursed, then said, “I’ll try.”
Bless Shuska. A group of men raced off toward the fire. “Daryl!” she snapped over the radio.
“Here.”
“Company. Be ready. Five, I think.”
The ecobot extended a leg down, setting a multitooled “hand” flat on the ground. Lou spoke, loudly enough to make herself heard below. “That’s so you can come talk to us, Henrietta. Come up here and talk.”
One of the young men with her screamed up, “No.”
A drone buzzed him. It didn’t shoot, but it made him step back. Pretty soon Henrietta would be standing alone.
“Henrietta?” Lou called. “What do you say?”
“If Sam comes with me.”
Who the heck was Sam? “He comes unarmed.”
The man who had ju
st taken a step back screamed. “You’re armed. I saw it.”
“A stunner.”
“Throw it down and maybe we’ll come up.” He bent to confer with the old woman.
Maybe this was Sam?
Lou glanced back at Valeria. The only light she had was starlight, and it was too little to make out much more than the black pools of Valeria’s eyes and the dark slash of her mouth. A slight glint from her earrings. “Do it.”
Lou turned back. A drone hovered just above her. Protection, she assumed. “Do you promise to bring no weapons? No knife, no stunner, no gun, nothing.”
“I have my hands.”
Bastard! Well, so did she.
She heard a scream far off, near the barn.
Time to stop this. She took her stunner and threw it over the side of the machine, so it landed just in front of Henrietta.
Sam helped Henrietta onto the flat foot of the bot, his big arm curled protectively around the older woman.
She moved slowly, not nearly as youthful-looking as Julianna. More like a brick, whereas Julianna was a feather, light and agile.
Henrietta braced herself on the bot’s leg just above the hand, and Sam hung on just as tightly, above her. He looked grim.
To their credit, neither looked frightened.
The bot moved its leg slowly, taking its passengers in a wide circle that avoided tilting its giant and currently flattened hand.
Behind them, a gust of fresh flames licked the night sky.
The new barn.
She called into the radio. “New fire. Barn, I think. The new barn. Dammit.”
The reply was a stream of invective.
At least they all knew how to cuss. “Daryl?” she called via the radio.
Nothing. Hopefully he was busy and not hurt.
Someone else would have to deal with it. She had to focus on Henrietta and Sam.
The ecobot demonstrated its gracefulness, stopping so that the old woman and her protector could step easily from their perch to its wide back.
Lou met them, taking them to sit on a five-inch-wide ledge of the drone parking space, which was the closest thing to a decent chair on top of an ecobot.
A perimeter light built into the side of the ecobot snapped on, allowing Lou to see the old woman. Her dark eyes receded deep into a wrinkled face but still managed to convey a great sense of purpose and power.
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