He was telling the truth. We’d lost sight of Micah Hoyt a.k.a. Micaiah. Most likely, he was already on a dead run for San Francisco or Los Angeles.
Despite the handcuffs, I felt the bracelet he’d made from a piece of red and white wire and grass; real Juniper jewelry, some salvage, some grass, entwined, like our lives. It hurt to think of him leaving me like that, but he had to give the world the cure to the Sterility Epidemic. What were our lives or loves compared to that? Even the six million dollars in reward money he’d promised didn’t seem so important anymore.
A soldier girl moved forward and struck Pilate across the face with the butt of her rifle.
Pilate sank to his knees, blood trickling down his chin. He coughed, cursed.
The noise roused Wren. She let out a hiss, part sigh, part laugh. “I was gonna call ’em jackering skanks. Dammit, Pilate, quit taking all the good lines.”
Pilate chuckled weakly.
My face pinched into a frown. The ARK wouldn’t let us live. We knew too much. Only one way to deal with a problem like us: a quick bullet in the brain.
The door buzzed, unlocked from out front. Company was coming. Maybe Tibbs Hoyt himself.
Two women entered the room. The coolness of air conditioning followed them. One was the last surviving Vixx, Rachel. The other was her second-in-command, Gianna Edger, a praetor in Hoyt’s grand army. We’d dealt with Edger before, and I’d gotten slapped for it. Three times.
The door locked behind them with a chunka-chunk. The praetors and Cuius Regios had been cloned to follow orders but were mostly human. Not the Vixxes. They’d been engineered to be better than human. Not sure which came first, the Vixxes or the Gulo Delta serum, but both had sprung from similar biotechnology. We’d managed to kill three of the Vixxes, but just barely.
More bodies in the room made it seem hotter—that and the way Rachel Vixx stared at us. My sister had stabbed Rachel in the belly a few days before, after we’d stolen the train in Wyoming. It should’ve put her in the grave, but the woman looked just fine, healthy even. She moved deliberately, no gesture wasted.
A Desert Messiah, .50 caliber, hung in a holster under her arm. The pistol was the most powerful handgun in the world and could blow your head clean off. Strapped around her waist was Wren’s gun belt, holding her dual Colt Terminators and her Betty knife.
Figured she wore Wren’s gear to piss us off. It worked.
“Where is Micah Hoyt?” the Vixx woman asked.
“In your ass,” Wren whispered. “Where I’m gonna put my foot. Once I get my shakti going.” Shakti, raw female power, which all of us Wellers had been blessed, or cursed, to have in abundance.
Rachel didn’t respond. She took out the Betty knife and nodded to Praetor Edger, who grabbed me. Another soldier helped. I tried to fight, but I was handcuffed, and every movement brought on lightning storms of sheer agony from where I’d been shot weeks earlier.
“If you do not answer all of my questions, I will stab her in the eye.” Rachel Vixx said mechanically. Nothing human was inside her, and she didn’t care about my pain or fear. All she wanted was the boy and the chalkdrive in his pocket.
Wren and Pilate couldn’t help me. If they moved a centimeter, the Regios would put them down.
“Don’t start with her, Rachel,” Pilate said. “Come and get me, since I’m in charge. Do you even know who I am?”
“Peter Pilgram, a.k.a. Father Pilate, Roman Catholic Priest, on suspension. Marine Chaplain, Social Security number 246-010-2187, no permanent address.”
Rachel touched the knife to my cheek. I threw my head back, panicking; every bit of life in me wanted to get away from her. Edger threw one arm around my neck and her other around my head to hold me still. I couldn’t fight. I couldn’t move. Before I knew it, I was crying, pleading with them. “Please, no, please. We don’t know where he is.”
“You claimed innocence before.” Edger’s voice slithered, snaking into my ear. “But you had the boy back at the Scheutz ranch, didn’t you?”
There was no way was I going to answer that.
The knife moved closer again. The scratches on the blade came into crystal-clear focus. Grit on the metal. Flecks of blood, maybe Rachel’s own. The tip hovered over my eyeball. I could almost feel the blade in the squish of my pupil.
Wren laughed, a jagged, raggedy sound. Neither the Vixx, nor Edger paid her any attention. Normal folks might’ve wondered at her laughter, but not them.
My sister laughing filled me with rage. “Goddammit, Wren!”
“Peter?” Wren asked. “Your name is Peter Pilgram?”
“Jesus,” Pilate muttered, “not now.”
Wren didn’t stop. “Sorry they kicked you out of the church, Peter, but really, you can’t be too surprised. You do like the ladies.”
Rachel Vixx still wasn’t distracted. She moved the knife forward, to blind me. But I jerked aside, and she jabbed the knife into my eyebrow. The blade bit bone.
“Hold her steady,” Rachel said to Edger; didn’t yell it, didn’t even seem all that frustrated. She knew that once she blinded me, Wren would take her and the whole situation far more seriously. “Irene Weller, your emotions are erratic, but that is the nature of emotions. They are a liability. I will use them to my advantage.”
Blood trickled down into my eye. I couldn’t open it, but Rachel didn’t need me to. If she wanted, she could stick the knife through my eyelid.
Edger got a fresh grip on me.
Wren laughed sharply. “Peter Pilgram? Like Harry Houdini? Your parents didn’t do you no favors, did they? Why, when I was in the circus, folks would name themselves like that. Two names startin’ with the same letter.”
Circus. Harry Houdini. The words spun through my head. Wren wasn’t just messing with Pilate; no, she was trying to tell us something.
Then I knew.
I went slack in Edger’s arms. She wasn’t expecting it and nearly dropped me.
Not a heartbeat later, a pistol shot exploded in the tight, packed room. The deafening noise rang my bell like nothing else. Felt like a hammer to my head.
It also brought a smile to my face.
(ii)
Gore splattered me. One of the soldier girls clutching me collapsed. I tore free from Edger but tripped and landed on my hurt shoulder. Pain clipped my breath short. I couldn’t see through the mask of blood. But I didn’t need to see to know who was shooting—Wren, circus-trained, had shucked off her handcuffs and stolen a pistol. Her talk of Harry Houdini had been code, and I’d given her the distraction she needed.
Machine gun fire pounded my ears. Bullets ricocheted in long whines—we were inside of a concrete box and every bullet that didn’t find flesh bounced around the room like the rubber balls I’d played with as a kid.
Regios tumbled to the floor next to me, maybe killed by Wren, more likely killed by the ricocheting rounds. But could Wren get to Rachel? Could she put the cloned soldier down with a headshot? Only severe brain trauma or a spinal cord injury could stop a Vixx.
I blinked blood from my eyes and sucked in a nose full of gunpowder stink. A bullet sparked the concrete centimeters away from my head.
Still handcuffed, Pilate head-bashed a soldier girl aside.
Wren and Rachel squared off.
The door buzzed. The locks clicked open. More troops poured in. Wren couldn’t shoot them all, and Pilate, coughing and pale, seemed about to drop.
Edger fell to the floor next to me, her throat blown out, revealing the cartilaginous rings of her trachea. Her eyes blinked open. No one human could’ve survived, but she wasn’t human anymore, not after being dosed by the Gulo Delta. Like Wren.
Edger shoved a semi-automatic pistol into the stitches on my forehead. The hurt stunned me.
Before she could pull the trigger, the back wall exploded.
A boiling cloud of concrete dust rolled through the room, followed by the familiar sound of the Moby Dick’s big .50 caliber machine guns. Sketchy, Tech, and Peeperz had sw
ooped in and saved the day. Now that the Moby was out of the Juniper, they could use the Eterna battery, and no other airship could catch them.
I punched Edger in the face and started for the hole in the back of the cell, but another sound rose to match the machine gun fire.
The thunder of cattle hooves.
A stampede.
Outside, on the streets of Wendover, casinos sparkled under a blazing desert sun. In front of them rushed our headcount in an unbroken cascade of cattle. But not just our headcount; no, every single animal from the Wendover stockyards, running, snorting, and trampling anything and everything in their path like a river of angry horns, hooves, and hide. The stench of the rampaging animals and the oily odor of the hot asphalt struck us in the jail cell.
Edger hooked her fingers into my hair to yank me back. Pilate dashed over. He grabbed Edger by her belt and shirt and hurled her through the hole in the wall—into the very heart of the stampede. Took a handful of my hair with her but it was worth it to see that woman swept away.
Wren followed Pilate’s lead. Before Rachel Vixx could stop her, my sister hauled the clone to the hole in the wall.
“Edger might get lonely out there!” Wren shrieked with laughter as she shoved the Vixx under the hooves of thousands upon thousands of scared, angry cattle. The mass of moving beef swallowed up both women in seconds.
“Heal that, ya dirty skanks,” Wren spit into the stampede.
I staggered to the door and slammed it shut. It would only stop the ARK reinforcements for a second, until they could buzz the door open again.
My sister threw on her vest and poncho, then stepped over corpses to get to Pilate. She’d been hit in the leg, and her blood soaked her jeans black. She’d found handcuff keys and used them to unlock Pilate.
“Well,” Pilate said loudly, “we can’t go out through the escape hatch Sketch gave us unless we want to try swimming through an angry beef stew.” Coughing cut off his words.
He’d also been hit, at least once. Blood covered his neck. As far as I knew, I was the only one not shot.
I nodded. “I bet it was bad timing. They prolly wanted to blow a hole in the wall before the cattle stampeded, but it all didn’t work like they wanted.”
Pilate, still hacking, scooped up an AZ3, while Wren, breathing hard, undid my handcuffs. She grimaced against her pain, then crouched and vomited blood onto the concrete floor. Even with the Gulo Delta in her veins, she was far from healed. Her internal injuries must’ve burst open again.
She threw me a ghastly grin. Red smeared the few teeth left in her mouth. “Gonna have to shoot your way out the front door, Princess. I’m nearly finished, and Pilate ain’t right. It’s all up to you ...” She slumped into me and went unconscious.
“Don’t call me ‘Princess,’” I whispered, not quite believing I was our best hope of getting out of there. I laid her gently on the floor.
Pilate’s lungs rattled, and he coughed until drool hung from his lips. Cattle continued to stream past the hole in a brownish blur. Not sure which bothered me more, their frightened screams or the dank stink of their sweat and fear.
I picked up an AZ3 and checked the clip: half empty. I dropped it and grabbed a full one. I collected a few more, then shuffled to the door, shaking, nauseous, horrified, but forcing myself to move. Just like Pilate forced his lungs to cooperate.
He dragged Wren to the wall just right of the door. “You ready?” he asked.
Not me. I wasn’t a gunslinger. I was just a young girl; smart, good with electronics, but far from a killer. I hadn’t been able to shoot anyone, not even to save my sister’s life. Who was I kidding? I was centimeters away from tears or puking or both.
The door buzzed again, but no one rushed in. Sure, they’d let us leave the room to ambush us in the hallway.
“Open the door, then step to the side,” Pilate said. “Don’t run out there. Okay?”
I nodded. I pushed open the steel door, then stepped to the left side. Pilate stood on the right, and we waited.
Nothing. No one seemed to be in the hallway. Could we be alone, or was this a trick?
Only one way to know for sure.
(iii)
Fluorescent bulbs flickered in the ceiling, flashing darkness and light off the green linoleum floor and cinderblock walls. A cool, air-conditioned breeze pushed a wet smell through the odor of blood and gunfire.
Pilate dug into Wren’s shirt pocket and tossed me her Hello Kitty compact mirror, which she used for both make-up and battle.
I held the mirror out past the corner and checked the hallway in both directions. Empty.
Outside, I didn’t hear the Moby’s guns anymore, but the thunder of the stampede continued, jangling my already damaged nerves.
Pilate nodded. I knew what he wanted me to do.
My knees shook. I couldn’t breathe. But I was being childish. Wren had fought when she was nearly dying, and now it was my turn.
I darted into the hallway. No one fired on me. The hall led to another steel security door, which stood open. Office chairs and cubicle walls filled the room. The door should’ve been closed. It had to be a trap.
Then I saw Sharlotte, in her gray New Morality dress, spotted with blood. She clutched Tina Machinegun, our Mama’s ancient M16 with a grenade launcher under the barrel.
Sharlotte, pale and dark-eyed, waved us in. “Come on. Cows are only gonna stampede for so long, and no one can get to us. Sketchy’s flown off to draw fire, but we all know the Moby Dick is nearly done for.”
I gasped, relieved. We were going to make it out, thank God. I helped Pilate with Wren, and we stumbled forward. My ankle made me limp, and Pilate’s cough slowed us down further. Those dang cigars he’d smoked for years surely didn’t help.
We lurched into an office that had become a battleground. Bullet holes marked desks and cubical walls, laptops and slates spewed their guts across the floor. Regio bodies lay scattered around. FBI wanted posters on a big bulletin board caught my eye.
I looked closer. And shivered.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation had our names listed as their most wanted criminals. At the very top were high-resolution pictures of me and Pilate, taken with a slate at some point. Someone had done sketches of Wren and Sharlotte, pretty much capturing every aspect of their faces.
We were wanted, not just by the ARK, but by every law enforcement agency across the U.S. How could we ever get away?
Pilate held Wren while I ripped the posters off the wall and stuffed them into the back pocket of my jeans. I’d look later to see what our supposed crimes were.
Then I saw Crete on the floor, dead. Crete. Lucretia Macaby, a girl my age, blonde and partial to silliness and giggles. She’d laugh no more.
I’d never liked her, not even a little, but looking into her dead, staring eyes felt like looking in a mirror. We’d gone to elementary school together. Now, she wouldn’t graduate high school. And she’d died trying to rescue me.
I felt selfish and petty. I couldn’t thank her nor could I take back my mean thoughts.
Sharlotte squinted against her sorrow but kept her voice even. “They got Crete. I didn’t think we’d have to shoot our way in. I thought she’d be safer with me. And she wanted to come to save you. We were both fools.”
“We can’t leave her here,” I said, trying to swallow down my shock. “We have to bury her.”
“Can’t,” Sharlotte whispered. “But we’ll pray for her. Pray hard. For her. For me. For what I did.”
No time to ask what she meant.
The front doors of the police station lay wide open, and outside, a wasp-yellow Ford Pegasus convertible idled next to the steps. Frictionless, it floated a half-meter off the ground. A blond boy sat behind the wheel. Micaiah. Seeing him filled me with hope and shakti.
Sharlotte ushered us away from Crete and toward the door.
Suddenly, a Regio filled the doorway. Not sure where she’d come from, but she had short, dark hair, blood on her fac
e, and an assault rifle aimed at us.
She opened fire and hit Sharlotte, who was thrown back.
I raised my rifle and pulled the trigger; it was set to fire three rounds at a time. Bullets hit the Regio in the shoulder and sparked off the AZ3, blowing it out of her fingers. Her right hand went for her holstered pistol.
Pilate collapsed into coughing. He dropped Wren. He was trying to get his gun up but couldn’t. And my oldest sister, my Sharlotte, lay on the ground.
I was going to have to finish off the Regio. I centered the laser grid on her forehead and pressed the sensor pad on the trigger to initiate the auto-correct targeting.
The soldier girl went to her knees and finally managed to draw her pistol. My rifle followed, moving easily in my hands to keep her head in focus.
Then time broke completely. It must’ve. Three things that should’ve flowed like a line of events got clumped together, like dirt clustered around the roots of a pulled dandelion.
The Regio let go of her pistol, and it clattered to the floor. She looked into my eyes and whispered, “Please, don’t kill me.”
I squeezed the trigger. Three bullets, one after another, pounded through her head.
Couldn’t take it back. Couldn’t. I killed her while she begged for mercy. And, I knew, a part of me died right there with her.
The shakes took me, my knees threatened to buckle, and I wanted to collapse into sobs. But I didn’t. I went to Sharlotte. Her eyes were open, she mouthed words, but she couldn’t get enough air to speak. Blood covered the left side of her body, shot to crapperjack. It took every bit of strength I had to lift her, even with her helping.
Pilate with Wren, me with Sharlotte, we teetered through the doors. Cows packed the street, killing each other, hooves pounding the pavement, sending up a horrendous, thundering noise. The whole town stank of cattle—scared, bleeding cattle.
An overturned truck to the east offered us some protection, but how was Micaiah going to drive through the stampede?
Machine-Gun Girls Page 26
