DEV1AT3 (Deviate)

by Jay Kristoff

  Lemon shook her head and smiled. “Oh, I’m not your sister, spunky.”

  “All the Lord’s children are our brothers and sisters,” a tall one replied.

  “Amen, Brother Ray,” the beardy one murmured.

  Beardy McBeardo was tossing a claw hammer between one hand and the other. Lemon realized it was the same one Sister Dee had used on the kids earlier.

  “Tell me, Brother Ray,” she said to the tall one. “Do you have to brush your teeth extra hard on account of all the crap that comes out of your mouth?”

  The dozen Brethren glanced at each other in disbelief. Brother Ray wandered over, crouched in front of Lemon. The man was big enough that the two of them were still eye to eye. This close, she could see the bloodshot in his stare, the nothing beyond it. His voice was the dangerous kind of quiet.

  “You looking to get hurt, little sister?”

  “Like you hurt those kids up there?”

  Brother Ray glanced at the pair onstage. He drummed his fingers on the massive Goodbook hanging from his belt.

  “Only the pure shall prosper,” he shrugged.

  Lemon sucked her lip, nodded. She pointed at the beardy Brother’s neck.

  “Hey, you got a bee on you.”

  The Brother frowned, then flinched, slapping at his throat. “Goddammit!”

  “Blasphemy, Brother R—ow, goddammit!”

  The Brethren managed a handful more curses before their lungs stopped working. Lemon backed away, turned her head so she wouldn’t have to watch them ghost, covering her ears to block out the sounds they made. She’d grown up rough, true cert, but she’d seen more people get cadaverous in the last week than she’d seen in all the days before put together. It was starting to get heavy.

  She wondered what Mister C might’ve said, seeing how she’d ended up so deep so quick. She could remember the old man looking her in the eye as he took her bloody hand in his, squeezed it tight and breathed his dying words.

  “Look after our g-girl. She’s going to…n-need you now.”

  Yeah. Great big fat job she was doing of that…

  Lemon flinched as she felt a soft hand on her shoulder, turned to see Hunter behind her. “Quickly.”

  Lemon nodded, pulled up her pants and gritted her teeth. Listening to the distant WarDome roar rising in pitch, she knelt beside Brother Ray, rifled his pockets.

  “What’s the word for someone both brilliant and beautiful?” she finally asked, holding up a set of car keys in triumph. “Brilliful? Beautifant?”

  “Go!” Hunter hissed, dragging the bodies out of sight.

  “Rightright.” Lemon snaffled the fallen claw hammer and dashed up onto the stage to take a closer peek at the captives. Both were wearing some kind of military uniform, cut out of desert camo. Both were also unconscious—the Asiabloc girl from blood loss and shock, the dark-skinned boy from the beating he’d taken and the torture that had come afterward.

  Probably for the best.

  Lemon set about figuring out how to get the pair free. She’d not eaten anything substantial in days, but she still felt her gorge rising, looking at the hammer in her hands and pondering the best way to drag the nails out of the boy’s feet.

  “Um, okay,” she whispered. “I am apparently not equipped to deal with this level of pukable.”

  Hunter appeared at her side, golden eyes gleaming with concern.

  “What takes so long?”

  “I’ve never done this before!” Lemon hissed. “These people have nails in parts of them that should not, strictly speaking, have nails in them!”

  Hunter snatched the hammer and set to work, and Lemon decided it’d be best for all concerned if she started the car instead. She ran down to the monster truck, keys in hand, and immediately realized she had two problems: First, a Disciple patrol had rounded the corner at the end of the market and were headed their way. And second, she was too short to reach the truck’s door handle.

  “Um,” she said. “Crap?”

  Looking around, she spied the bloated Brotherhood corpses. Lemon dashed over, slipped the cutter free from her buckle and sliced Brother Ray’s belt. Picking up his fat, leather-bound copy of the Goodbook, she waddled back to the monster truck. Placing the book on its end, she stood atop it, popped the handle, climbed inside. Using the book’s chain, she hauled it up, and plopped it on the driver’s seat so she’d be tall enough to see over the wheel. She gave the embossed cover a small pat.

  “The Lord helps those who help themselves,” she murmured.

  The rear passenger door opened, and Hunter dumped the unconscious girl inside, dashed back for the boy. Peering out through the windshield, Lemon saw the Disciples had noticed something wrong and were trotting down the street, speaking into their commsets. Lemon turned the key, rewarded with an earthshaking roar.

  “Hunter, move your ass!” she shouted.

  The Disciples broke into a run, slinging their rifles off their backs. Lemon saw another patrol dashing toward them from the opposite direction, heard the blare of a steamwhistle from the de-sal plant, followed by a wailing air-raid siren from the city walls. She gunned the engine, feet barely able to reach the pedals.

  “HUNTER!”

  The door behind her opened, the BioMaas agent leaping inside with the dark-skinned boy in her arms. “Go, Lemonfresh!”

  Lemon stomped the gas just as the bullets started flying, spanging off the panelwork and shattering the windshield. The motor bellowed and the truck lunged forward, crushing a row of tinshack market stalls. Lemon winced, tried to find reverse, the gearbox making a sound like a bolt dropped into a meat grinder.

  “Can she not drive?” Hunter demanded.

  “…Did I not mention that?” Lemon asked.

  The BioMaas agent muttered to herself, hauled that strange fishbone pistol out from under her cloak. She fired off a dozen shots out the window, seemingly at random. The bullets were green, luminous, humming like fireflies as they whizzed harmlessly up into the dark.

  Lemon gawped over her shoulder. “Can you not shoot?”

  “A Hunter never misses our mark,” the woman replied.

  “Maybe you better tell your bull…”

  Lemon’s voice faded, and she turned back to her window as the humming changed pitch. Mouth dropping open, she watched as the shots curved in midair, swooped off in a multitude of directions like they had minds of their own, striking each of the dozen Disciples running at the truck. The men collapsed, convulsing where they fell. In a handful of heartbeats, every one of them was motionless.

  Lemon met the BioMaas operative’s golden stare.

  “Okay,” she nodded. “You can shoot.”

  “Go!” Hunter roared.

  Lemon found reverse, planted her foot, the truck ripping free of the stalls and crashing ass-backward into the stage. The girl bounced back in her seat, cracked her forehead on the steering wheel, slammed on the brake.

  “You might wanna fasten your safety belt,” she muttered.

  “What is safety belt?”

  “Oh, this is going to end well.”

  Lemon spun the wheel, stomped the pedal and they were off, tearing away through the market. Even with her butt parked on the Goodbook, she could barely see out of the broken windshield, and the truck crashed through another dozen stalls and rolled straight over a row of parked dirt bikes as it roared out of the square. The air-raid siren was wailing louder, but most of the citizens of New Bethlehem were still at WarDome, and the streets were clear.

  The truck was thundering past the de-sal plant when the second round of bullets started flying. Lemon heard lead pattering on the panels like rain, desperately trying to keep four wheels on the ground as she swerved and swayed. The truck plowed through an ethyl joint, flattened a parked RV and screeched around the corner into the main square, rumbling for the
gate.

  “Um.”

  Lemon slammed on the brakes, chewed her lip.

  “Okay, good news and bad news.”

  “What?”

  “Bad news is, the gate’s closed.” She shot Hunter an apologetic glance. “And I sorta lied, there is no good news.”

  Hunter peered out of the shattered windshield. Ahead, the heavy double gates of New Bethlehem had been closed and sealed—apparently in response to the sirens they’d set off. They were five meters tall, half a meter thick, iron-reinforced. The agent glanced at Lemon, her face grim.

  “Easy as a very easy thing, yes?”

  “Look, no one ever let me plan stuff before, I got kept around for my looks!”

  Hunter did something to her pistolthing that might’ve been a reload. She loosened the throat of her outfit, and a swarm of furious bumblebees began crawling from the hive that was her skin. With a flick of her left wrist, a long, wicked barb the color of bleached bone emerged from the flesh of her palm.

  “Where the hells were you hiding that?” Lemon breathed.

  “When gate opens, drive.”

  “But wha—”

  “Drive.”

  Hunter opened the truck door, leapt down onto the broken street and dashed right at the gatehouse. As she ran, she fired another dozen of those firefly rounds into the dark. The glowing green bursts swooped among the Disciples and Brotherhood members who’d responded to the siren, and Hunter’s bees took to the wing. Lemon heard screams over the idling motor, wails and gargled prayers. She ducked low as a hail of bullets struck the truck, but most of the shooters were gunning for the BioMaas agent cutting them to ribbons. The woman tumbled along the ground, dreadlocks whipping like snakes. She twisted to her feet, hurtled over the swelling corpses manning the gatehouse and disappeared inside.

  The girl couldn’t see what went on inside the building, couldn’t hear over the siren’s wail. But within a minute, the gate clunked and shook, the bolts sealing it shuddered aside. Heavy chains ran through greasy pulleys, the metal groaned. And with a long, rusty creak, the gates to New Bethlehem opened wide.

  “Okay…,” Lemon breathed. “I’m officially impressed.”

  She stomped the gas, rubber burning, the truck lunging forward with a roar. Bullets struck the panels, ricocheted off the long rim guards as a few of the smarter Brethren tried to shoot out the tires. But Lemon just grit her teeth and fanged it, hard as she could, the beast thundering toward the open gate.

  She glanced up, saw figures on top of the gatehouse, silhouetted against the light of burning forty-four-gallon drums. She saw Hunter’s shadow, weaving and striking with that barb at her wrist. She saw Brethren and blood falling like rain. And as she thundered underneath the gate, she saw Hunter dive, hairspines streaming behind her, landing with a soft whuff in the tray of the truck.

  “Go!” the woman cried, thumping her hand on the roof.

  Lemon planted both feet on the accelerator as the wheels spun and the engine hollered and dust rose behind them in a rolling cloud. A few shots whizzed past her window as they gunned for the open road, but Hunter seemed to have gutted most of the garrison, the fight bled right out of them.

  Hunter climbed in through the open window, slid into the seat beside her, spattered head to foot in blood. Lemon thumped her hands on the steering wheel, grinning wider than that annoying bot in his annoying shop.

  “Told you!” she roared over the motor. “Easy as a very easy thing!”

  And that’s when she noticed not all the blood belonged to the Brotherhood.

  A ragged hole glistened in Hunter’s sternum, the agent’s hand pressed to it in an effort to stanch the red. The woman looked pale, her few remaining bees crawling around the wound, buzzing furiously. Her voice was a pained whisper.

  “She c-calls that easy?”

  “Just hold on, okay?” Lemon cried.

  Heartbeat like thunder in her chest. Stomach hurting again, like it was full of broken glass. Dust stinging her eyes and blinking back the tears. Pushing away the thought that this was all her fault and just trying to keep the truck steady as they roared past the Brotherhood farmland and out onto open highway.

  “Hunter, can you hear me?”

  The moon was trying to shine through the smog overhead, a cold and ghostly light creeping out over the fields of gene-modded corn. The BioMaas agent leaned back in her seat, her lap slowly filling with red. It was more blood than Lemon had ever seen in her life, the smell flooding the cabin and mixing with the ocean’s stink and making her arms shake. Hunter winced, hand pressed to the bubbling wound. A half dozen fat bumblebees were bashing into the shattered windshield, as if maddened by the agent’s pain.

  “Hunter?” Lemon asked.

  The woman simply closed her eyes and shook her head.

  “Tell me what to do!” Lemon wailed. “Should I stop?”

  “Don’t you b-bloody dare,” came a hoarse whisper behind her.

  Lemon flinched, the truck hit the gutter, close to spilling. She wrestled for control of the weight, her butt almost sliding off the Goodbook. Pawing her bangs from her eyes, she glanced into the rearview mirror. She saw dark eyes, dark skin, a jaw you could break your knuckles on. Cropped black hair, a radiation warning symbol shaved into the side of his head. Realizing the boy they’d rescued…

  “You’re awake,” Lemon breathed.

  “Drive,” the boy repeated. “Straight east. Keep th-the ocean on your back.” His voice was deep, his accent trimmed with a heavy slice of proper fancy. “Stomp that pedal like it insulted your mum.”

  He turned to the girl lying unconscious beside him, touched her pale face.

  “Diesel?” he whispered. “Deez, you hear me?”

  “Is she okay?” Lemon asked.

  The boy checked the bandage at the girl’s chest, the bullet wound beneath. “Does she look okay?”

  Lemon reached into her cargo pockets, started tossing the meds she’d snaffled from Solomon’s joint onto the backseat. “Any of that help?”

  “Maybe,” the boy grunted, checking through the boxes and bottles. “You nick this stuff from the Brotherhood?”

  “Borrowed. So to speak.”

  “So you’d be some kind of undies-on-head crazy, aye?”

  “In case you didn’t notice, I just rescued your sorry ass from certain doom. I’m effing brilliful, is what I am.”

  The boy raised an eyebrow.

  “It’s like a cross between brilliant and beau—”

  “Yeah, I get it,” he growled.

  Ignoring the bleeding wounds at his own wrists and feet, the boy started stripping the sodden bandages from his friend’s torso. Lemon glanced at Hunter, saw the woman had wadded her cloak over the bullet hole in her sternum. Her face was gleaming with sweat, bloodless.

  “You still with me?” Lemon asked.

  Hunter simply nodded, golden eyes on the road ahead. She cracked the window, the wind rustling the spines on her scalp. Lifting one red hand, she whispered to three fat bumblebees crawling on her bloody fingers. One by one, the insects took flight, out through the window and into the night. Hunter leaned back in her seat, eyelashes fluttering as her bloody lips moved.

  “Just be still, okay? Don’t try to talk.” Lemon twisted in her seat, looked at the boy behind her. “Hey…what’s your name, anyway?”

  “Grimm,” the boy scowled, not looking up.

  “…Grimm?”

  “Is there an echo in here or what?”

  “Okay, Grimm, that fits,” Lemon nodded. “I approve.”

  “Oh, that’s a relief.”

  “You got crew? Where you from? My friend’s shot, she needs to get fit quick.”

  “Already said, love,” the boy replied, wrapping clean bandages around the girl’s chest. “Gun it east. That’s where we’ll find help
.”

  “My name’s not love,” she said. “It’s Lemon Fresh.”

  “What kinda name is—”

  The rear window exploded, glass showering into the cabin. A split second later, Lemon heard the rifle shot, glanced into the rearview as Grimm dragged his friend to the floor. Through the dark and dust they were kicking up, she saw the headlights of a posse—trucks, 4x4s, motorcycles, by the look—riding up on their tail. The sky overhead was buzzing with a half dozen rotor drones, each packing a small autocannon. Squinting through the gloom, she could just make out big black Xs painted on the autos’ hoods.

  “Well, that wasn’t entirely unexpected,” she sighed.

  Tearing the wheel right, she drove them off the highway and onto a shattered off-ramp. The driver’s side mirror exploded as a bullet struck it, another shot thunking clean through the tray door and into the radio, popping it like a balloon. Lemon twisted the wheel, sent the truck swerving across the road. Glancing into her rearview, she yelled over the engine’s roar.

  “Those bikes are gaining on us, and someone in those trucks can shoot!”

  “Probably Brother War,” Grimm spat, squinting out the back window. “He’s the one who plugged Deez. But they’ll want us alive, he’s just playing with us.”

  “Playing?” Lemon shouted. “Do not like this game! Do not!”

  “If he wanted us ghosted, we’d already be brown bread. Can we go faster?”

  “I’m already flooring it!”

  Grimm cursed, started hunting around inside the truck. Lifting the backseat, he found a greasy automatic rifle engraved with scripture. Lemon winced, pawing at her stomach. Her nausea had returned, head buzzing, bones aching. Reaching into her cargos, she fished out her bottle of radmeds. She looked to Hunter for help, but saw the woman was out cold in a puddle of her own blood. The truck began weaving and skidding all over the road as Lemon wrestled with the childproof lid.

  “I’m trying to aim here!” Grimm roared. “Can you hold it bloody steady?”

  “No!” she said, tossing the bottle back to the boy. “Open that for me!”

  The boy frowned at the bottle. “You got dosed? Where at? How bad?”