by Rhys Ford
I’d brought an ice chest with me, mostly to bribe Sparky into giving me a good deal on a Rover but also to get some kind of vegetable in her diet for a few days. Left to her own devices, she existed on dragonkill scraps, mostly antelope and oryx with the occasional buffalo thrown in for good measure. The dogs ate better than she did, and I’d spent most of my life couriering supplies up to the Landing just so Sparky had something to eat other than meat and peanut butter.
The zucchini, suffice it to say, were not a hit.
Hopefully they weren’t offensive enough to sour the deal. Bringing Ryder was, considering how she felt about elfin in general, but I’d offset that with a couple of boxes of brown sugar cinnamon Pop-Tarts and possibly the last packet of Berry Blue Razz juice powder in San Diego county.
“Are you looking to rent or buy?” She prodded one of her brindle-furred mutts out of the way with the toe of her boot before the dog could settle down on her foot to sleep. It leaped up, trying to snag the tail of her shirt, but it was an old game Sparky knew how to avoid. Running her hand through her silver-shot hair, she shoved a bit of fringe out of her eyes. “Renting’s going to be expensive. Probably as much as buying something.”
“I’m going up to Groom Lake,” I reminded her. “You think there’s going to be anything left of it to bring back? I’ll be lucky if the tires don’t melt on the desert road.”
“Then buy it is. Groom Lake’s a bitch. That’s for sure. You’re going to need something hefty, able to take a hit. Lots of nightmares that way.” Sparky chewed on the end of a toothpick. “And something rechargeable. Can’t do gas. No filling spots along the way. Not like before.”
“Nope. And that’s going to suck if we want power. Unless you’ve got a racer engine in a tank.”
I glanced at Sparky when she snorted loudly enough to startle the dog away.
“I’m guessing that’s a no. I don’t have Oketsu up and running yet, but nothing you’ve got is probably small enough to be hauled by the dual engine. Fuel cells last forever, but damn, not enough punch for a good getaway if I need it.”
“Lots of tech was lost in the Merge, and everything we’ve got like that is way too rich for me to carry. Who’s going to buy it, Kai? Average Stalker can barely pay for a six-pack of beer and a burrito on a good day. You think one’s going to waltz up here and ask for a Tesla?” She spat, probably to clear the emotion welling up in her throat. “I’m not going to store what people can’t buy. I’ll show you what I’ve got, and you decide what’s going to work for you. If not, you can take your chances with the Spelany brothers up in Julian.”
Guess the zucchini was even less of a hit than I’d thought. Sparky hated the Spelany brothers and usually couldn’t bring herself to say their names, much less tell me to go see them. Something was up with her, something buried deep and pricking her nerves.
But then she was also in the middle of nowhere with only roaming herds of safari escapees and dogs to keep her company. Even as much as I liked my solitude, living out in the boonies and only seeing the occasional traveler would make me a bit tetchy too.
“You’re the best there is, Sparky,” I countered. “Why’d I go to someone else?”
“Humph. Let me think about what I’ve got.” The toothpick went back into her mouth, and she stared off into the distance for a few seconds. Her eyes were still unfocused when she asked, “You say he’ll pay for it?”
“He’s not hurting for money, and on top of that, SoCalGov gives him kickbacks for establishing a Court in the city. It’s easier on the Feds to sic the sidhe on any elfin troublemakers instead of dealing with it themselves. Part of the Truce Agreement, remember?” I glanced back to check on Ryder, who seemed to be preoccupied with a white puppy gamboling about in the dirt. “It’s kind of why I’m stuck with him. SoCalGov’s liaison with the Southern Rise Court.”
“Liaison, my scrawny ass.” Sparky guffawed, swinging around on her heel. “He wants you flat on your back in his bed, and this liaison thing is the only way he can keep tabs on you. I might be old, but I know a tickle between the legs when I see one.”
“I do not need to know about any of your tickles. No matter where they are.” The dirt was flying up fast, swirling around my boots as the wind kicked up. “But show me what you’ve got in long transport, and maybe we can make a deal.”
“Wait here. I’ll bring it out.” Tossing her toothpick into an open oil drum, she nodded at Ryder. “Might be too ugly for His Lordship over there, but it’ll hold up and is fast enough to outrun most smaller predators. Just don’t go dragon tangling and you’ll be fine.”
“You act like I go out there and fuck with dragons on purpose,” I protested.
“Boy, you kinda do,” she shot back over her shoulder. “Now go wait by your pet sidhe over there. Watch to make sure none of the pups get underfoot. Some of them are as stupid as all hell.”
I waited a beat, and Sparky didn’t disappoint me.
“Kind of like you when I first met you.”
“I like this puppy,” Ryder declared when I walked up to him. “Do you think she will let me buy it? Alexa was saying having a dog would be good for the House.”
“I don’t know. Do you think you’re ready for that kind of responsibility?” I teased. “Puppies are a lot of work. And you can’t take care of the sidhe you already have. Look, you’re already going to be dumping them on Alexa so you can go on this trip, so I don’t know if—”
“Is that your idea of a joke?” He stood up, cradling the dog in his arms. “Because I take very good care of my Court. The only reason I am going with you is I want answers—”
“And?” I prompted.
“And I can’t trust you not to shoot the professor if she pisses you off.” Ryder stroked the dog’s sleek head. “You tend to shoot anything and anyone you find disagreeable.”
“Haven’t shot you yet, have I?” I pointed out just as the air began to shake with the rumble of a heavy engine. “And there’s our ride.”
Ryder turned, and his mouth dropped open. Struggling to hold the squirming puppy, he whispered, “By all the gods in the trees and sky, what in the nine hells is that?”
The drover was ugly. I’ve got to give Sparky that. She hadn’t lied. It was all angles and flat with bulbous tires raising it off the ground by at least two feet. The thing wouldn’t win any beauty prizes, but it could probably take on a dragon and live to tell the tale. Maybe.
It’d been constructed out of a military transport vehicle, a squat, wide thing meant to be a mobile command center or perhaps double as a backup tank in case of a conflict, but whatever it’d started life out as, the vehicle now had Sparky’s stamp all over it. As long as an old-school bus, its frame and sides wrapped around its six heavy, solid synthetic wheels, a standard two set in the front and one in back, a setup favored by those who needed to go over small buildings and mountains in their day-to-day lives. The heavily treaded tires were nearly as tall as Sparky, inset and mounted on solid rims and built to take a beating, and its body was a mottled light gray, speckled with dark mirrored hexagons to soak up any solar energy it could to recharge the massive fuel cells banked at the back of the drover.
Nearly the height of a house, its width promised some room inside, and its independent wheel movement as it rumbled slowly through Sparky’s uneven parking lot gave me hope for some maneuverability. Black windows ran around the sides, an indication I’d have good visibility, but the gruff grumble of its powerful engine meant there was no sneaking up on anything.
Despite Sparky’s assessment of their intelligence, the dogs stayed clear of the drover, mostly watching from the relative safe comfort of the tree line. The drover came to a stop in front of us, and its roof creaked slowly upward, popping up in segments, metal panels snapping into place one by one until the drover sported a small tower. I was unsure about what it was until the interior lights flared on and the windows cleared, turning transparent. There were bunks in the top structure, or at least wide platforms
with padding. The rest of the interior was murkier, but I recognized a panel of instrumentation on the side, probably radar or sonar to check ground stability.
What I didn’t see were weapons.
“So that’s where we’d sleep?” Ryder asked. “On top of the tank thing?”
“Kind of dangerous if we were in Pendleton, but most inland draconian species are smaller. They don’t attack vehicles, so we’d be safe.”
“I don’t like your use of the word most.”
“Unlike you, I don’t like to lie.”
“Once!” Ryder protested, setting the puppy down. “And it was necessary. I didn’t know how you’d feel about a human woman carrying elfin babies.”
“Blah, blah, blah.” I made a flapping motion with my hands. “Just remember, everything you do is banked. You only grow what you sow. Now let’s go take a look at this thing. Maybe it’ll be big enough to hold that ego of yours.”
Sparky rolled down the windows, and I climbed up onto the passenger side step to get a better look. Ryder edged in next to me, crowding me against the doorframe through the open window. Slapping the dashboard, she asked, “Whatcha think? This do it for you?”
“What I’m seeing here is you’ve got no weapons, Sparky. This thing’s big enough to hold at least one Gatling gun, but there’s no hard point to mount it on.” I peered into the drover’s back cabin.
“So you get weapons. That kind of thing is something personal. Say I go and mount a semi but you want something bigger? Take a long time to dismount, change a bracket, and then load something else up in its place.” Sparky’s mouth twisted into a wide smirk. “And don’t tell me boys don’t like to choose their toys. I’ve seen you in a gun shop, Kai. Worse than a virgin in a one-price-all-night whorehouse.”
She wasn’t wrong. I did like to choose my own guns, but rolling out of the gate with nothing was unsettling. I must have had an odd look on my face because Ryder nudged his shoulder into mine.
“If we have to wait a day or two to get what you want on this thing, it will be okay. I trust you, Kai. Whatever you think we need, we’ll get.” His eyes were too bright, too skilled at peeling back my defenses for me to stare into them for very long, and I looked away, pretending to examine the cabin again.
It was nerve-racking to have someone place their life in my hands, especially Ryder, who spent his entire life giving orders to people so they could order someone else around. He was getting to me, the green tea and vanilla scent of his skin and the way the sun caught on the metallic gold strands of his hair. For me it wasn’t simply the genetically driven imperative to want him. He was definitely getting to me.
This trip was going to suck.
I turned my attention back to Sparky. “So no guns at all?”
“Nothing offensive. Frame and body are solid, nearly impenetrable and sealed airtight. And there’s an exterior shock grid built into the body. Downside of that is, you’ll have to wait to recharge after using it. Probably takes about an hour of full sun, longer if cloudy. Don’t think that’s something you have to worry about where you’re going, but you never know, what with the storms that move through that area.” Sparky leaned back in the captain’s chair, gesturing behind her. “Benches fold up for storage. Instrument panel is compact, and there’s a recycling water plant and a separate generator.
“You’ll have to do your business outside, but it’ll be good for you to stretch your legs. It’s got a full link communications setup and….” She flicked a switch by the steering wheel, filling the drover with a jangle of guitars and drums. “Built-in stereo system. You can hear whatever you’re playing anywhere in the thing. Even up top.”
“Great. So defense is going to have to be hand held. How much?” I stopped Ryder from playing with the instrument panel, grabbing his fingers before he opened up a link to Pele-knew-where. “Don’t touch anything. Not until you’ve paid for it.”
“What does it matter the cost if it’s the only thing suitable?” Ryder hissed at me.
“Because it’s….” I stumbled over the thought of paying full price. “It’s what we do. Just… roll with it.”
“Silly custom, but of course. By all means, haggle away like an egg merchant.” He pressed a button and the stereo cut off. I wasn’t sure his wide grin was because the button deactivated something or because he’d pressed it to piss me off. “Wait, you are an egg merchant. Never mind, carry on.”
Sparky started off high. I expected that from her, but the ground beneath me was slippery. I didn’t know exactly how much something like the drover cost, and she had me over a barrel, especially since His Lordship practically offered up the keys to the kingdom right in front of her. There wasn’t much room to wiggle in, but I gave it my best shot.
I’d gotten her down nearly forty percent from her asking price when Ryder leaned over and whispered something in my ear. I wasn’t sure I’d heard right, so I turned to face him, no easy feat when standing on a slender platform meant solely to be a foothold for someone to get into the steel beast Sparky was trying to sell me.
“Want to repeat that?”
He did, and what he said didn’t get any less stupid. I’d definitely heard him right.
Disgusted, I asked, “Are you sure?”
“Yes. Let’s cut to the chase of this thing. She has what we need, and I want to get on our way.” He gave her a smile charming enough to pull the panties off a nun. “Besides, I’m not interested in cheating Ms. Sparky.”
“Crap. Fine. But if you’re going to be throwing away money, toss some my way too.”
“I already have, and still we’ve not moved out of the county,” Ryder drawled. “You still need to get weapons for this vehicle. The longer we bicker over its price, the longer I am going to be standing here, pressed up against you. And while that is nice for me—”
“Shut up,” I muttered. “Dick.”
“So what’s it going to be, Kai?” Sparky toyed with the piping on the seat. “You going to take her? Or am I going to have to back this thing up and put her away?”
“Fine, we’ll do your last offer, but….” I sighed when Ryder nudged me in the ribs. “Throw in the white puppy and we’ve got a deal.”
“SO YOUR girl Dalia’s going to be taking Newt in, then?” Jonas’s Rover slowly crawled through San Diego’s understreets. “That girl’s too good for you.”
“You’re not wrong,” I replied. “She’s too good for the cat too, but Newt doesn’t let it get in the way of his dinner and the occasional sunbeam.”
“You’re not good enough for that girl.”
“Don’t I know it,” I snorted. “I owe her more than a few life debts, and all she wants from me is fresh strawberries.”
Dalia Yamada, ER doctor and the daughter of a wealthy Irish-Nipponese family from up north, was not only my next-door neighbor and one of my best friends. She was also gorgeous and a human I’d crushed on since the day she first walked into my warehouse by mistake and I’d nearly taken her head off with an explosive round. We’d danced around one another for a while. Then after Ryder shoved his way into my life, we’d come to the understanding that I was no good for her, and she’d gone on to fall in love with my tattoo artist. To be fair, Jason was an extraordinary mechanical engineer as well, but first and foremost, he was my inker.
Since then, Dalia and I still shared a beer or two on the rooftop, and she took care of my cat when I left town, but any simmering glances and smoldering touches were now clearly off limits. I missed the flirtation. Hell, I missed her, but I was a lost cause if ever there was one. She deserved a hell of a lot better than a notch-eared Stalker who lived and died on the price of black dog pelts.
“Did you eat? Because I could eat.” Jonas, ever the caring uncle, jostled the conversation away from heartbreak and straight to heartburn. “When we get done down here, let’s get some noodles. I could eat some beef chow fun dry style from Golden Chicken Panda Dragon.”
“It’s Golden City,” I corrected. “And yeah, I
could eat. Considering I’m going to be on rations and whatever we can hunt up for the next couple of weeks, chow fun sounds great.”
The streets slowly turned saffron as we moved deeper into the lower level. San Diego’s wedge-like below structure was great on the outer rim, but farther in, the city sloped and the upper level closed in, cutting off all natural light. There’d been some half-assed attempt to bring sunlight to the lower regions, but mostly that meant dinner-plate-sized UV lights mounted to the underside of the roadways making up the undercity’s ceiling.
With the dampness underground, the lights went screwy, flashing on and off when their wiring corroded, usually in the dead of night. If the bulbs were easy to get to, they were either stolen or broken. It was hard to deal drugs or whore under eight hours of artificial daylight, and fake sun bulbs went a long way in helping grow illegal crops.
I had one in my garage, because the bright white glow made it easier to see dropped screws and parts if I was working on the Mustang at night. The guy I bought it off of made no effort to tell me where he’d gotten it, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to ask.
An earthen barrier cut into the undercity, the sidhe compound at Balboa slicing into the pie, and farther down, enormous half pipes allowed traffic to flow under the raging waters of the diverted San Diego River, its turbulent waters pounding into the sides of the cement tunnels. The river bisected Balboa, flowing out of an opening on a mesa just past the old eight freeway and down toward Tijuana. Its waters were arctic cold, fed by the snowmelt from the jutting mountains to the north of San Diego.
I’d been in those waters. The river practically froze the skin off me once, and I didn’t care to repeat that experience. Unfortunately, ice chunks carried down through the underground caverns meant Lower San Diego was constantly cold, a tomb of cement and steel carrying its frigid chill through the streets.
