by Jay Kristoff
“This is Lemon Fresh,” the boy said. “She’s one of us.”
The Major looked at her, his eyes glittering.
“I know,” he replied. “Follow me.”
The man turned crisply, and leaning on a cane, he limped toward the hatch in the far wall. Lemon’s brainmeats were still urging her to run, bail, get out out out, but the three words Grimm had just spoken held her rooted to the floor.
One of us.
The big boy, Fix, pushed past them, carrying Diesel through the hatch. Lemon looked at Grimm, uncertainty on her face. He smiled crooked, gave her a wink.
“S’alright. You’re gonna wanna see this.”
His smile seemed genuine, and again, he struck her as the sort who’d care that she’d saved his hind parts. With a sigh, Lemon helped him limp through a short tunnel and into a vast open space. She felt the hum of electrical current on her skin, felt it in the static behind her eyes. She saw the turbines of a large generator, rows of old computer terminals, a bunch more tech she didn’t understand. A sealed hatchway loomed in one wall, painted with big red letters.
SECTION C
NO LONE ZONE
TWO PERSON POLICY MANDATORY
A set of spiral stairs led into the ceiling and floor. Fix carried Diesel down to the lower level, the Major followed. Lemon paused at the top, uncertain. That earthy smell was stronger here, the smell of faint rot beneath.
“We must be a long way underground by now,” she muttered.
“It’s all right, love,” Grimm said. “Trust me.”
“Look, you wanna get pushed down these stairs?” Lemon growled.
“Not really, no,” the boy replied.
“Then stop calling me love, dammit.”
The Major’s voice rang up the stairs. “We’re almost there.”
Lemon heaved a sigh, one hand around Grimm’s waist, the other on the cutter at her belt. These hatchway locks were mechanical as well as electronic—if she got trapped down here, she wasn’t sure she could get out again. But those three words kept pushing her on where the butterflies in her belly were urging her to turn back.
One.
Of.
Us.
And so, pulling on her streetface, she followed the Major and Fix down, through another hatch. And there, she felt her breath stolen clean away.
“Wow…,” she whispered.
Greenery. Wall to wall. Beds of dark dirt and ultraviolet lights humming overhead, and beneath, everything was green. Plants of all shapes and sizes, broad leaves and long limbs, and trees, actual trees hung heavy with…
“Is that fruit?” she asked, her eyes wide.
“That it is,” the Major replied. “This way. Quickly.”
The old man led them through the green, Lemon breathing in the rich, earthy air. Among the rows of garden beds, she saw the big boy, Fix, kneeling on the concrete with Diesel laid out before him. He beckoned Lemon and Grimm over with frantic waves of his big, callused hands. It was gloomy in here, and as the boy pulled his goggles up, Lemon saw his irises were the strangest green she’d ever laid eyes on—so bright, they were almost luminous.
“Will she be all right?” Lemon asked, looking Diesel over.
“I seen worse,” Fix declared.
Grimm glanced to the Major, nodded at Lemon.
“She took a dose of rads,” the boy said. “She’ll need a fix, too.”
“…Um, actually, I don’t feel too bad anymore,” Lemon said.
“They call that the walking ghost stage, love,” Grimm explained. “The nausea, the pain, it all goes away. But your bone marrow and the lining of your stomach’s all dead. You don’t get fixed soon, you will be, too.”
“I…” She swallowed hard. “You mean…I’m still gonna die?”
Grimm shook his head, held out his hand. “Not if you trust us.”
Lemon looked to the Major, unsure what to do or say. Truth told, whatever this was, she was in it up to her neck now, and the queasy fear of radsick poisoning hushed the rest of her concerns. Breathing deep, she took Grimm’s hand.
“You wanna back off, sir,” Fix said, waving the Major away.
The old man retreated half a dozen steps. Satisfied, the big boy nodded, took a deep breath. Lemon watched him put a hand on Diesel’s chest, place the other in Grimm’s palm. Grimm entwined his fingers with Lemon’s.
“This is gonna feel strange,” the older boy said.
“What do you m—”
Lemon felt her skin begin to prickle, as if electrical current was dancing over her skin. Her mouth was suddenly dry, the air greasy and charged. She felt a surge of warmth, starting in the hand Grimm was holding, spreading out through her body. It felt like pins and needles, like being wrapped in an itchy blanket, like a million warm cockroaches crawling on and under and through her skin.
Fix tilted his head back, a frown darkening his smooth brow. Lemon saw the color of his irises begin to warp, run, spilling out across the whites of his eyes until they were almost entirely green. She heard a whispering sound, realized the leaves around them were rustling, curling…
Dying.
Like some invisible flame was raging through the garden, the plants withered. Green turned to brown, ripe fruit turned to husks, the plants wilting as if they were aging a hundred years in the blink of an eye. Lemon felt butterflies in her belly, caught her breath as she saw the wounds in Grimm’s hands and feet, the bullet hole in Diesel’s chest, the scrapes on her own skin…
“Spank my spankables.”
Lemon realized every plant within a three-meter radius of Fix was totally dead. And all their wounds, the nail holes, the bullet holes, the cuts and bruises earned in the last few days…
…they’re gone.
Fix opened his eyes, gently touched Diesel’s face. He seemed out of breath, sweat on his skin, chest heaving as if he’d just run a marathon. But his lips curled in a goofy smile as the girl’s lashes fluttered, and she opened her eyes.
“See?” he wheezed. “Funkin’ miracle worker, me.”
Diesel reached up and put her bloodstained arms around Fix’s neck. Dragging him into a fierce embrace, she pressed her black, paint-smudged lips to his.
Grimm groaned. “Gawd, get a bloody room, you two.”
Lemon could see the bigger boy was clearly drained. Shadows were puddled under those bright green eyes, his face paled, his shoulders slumped. But he still looked triumphant as he pulled his lips away from Diesel’s.
“How’d you get shot, anyways?” he murmured.
“It was Grimm’s fault,” Diesel replied softly.
“Screw you, Deez,” the dark-skinned boy said.
“Ew, no.” Diesel unwrapped her arms from Fix’s neck, gave Grimm a solid punch to the thigh. “But thanks for the offer.”
“Glad you’re all right,” Grimm grinned, brown eyes sparkling.
“You too,” Diesel smiled. “But it was your fault.”
“Hey, I found you a present,” Grimm said. He pawed his vest, his shirt, as if looking for something. Finally he dug a hand into the pocket of his cargos, brought it out again with his middle finger raised. “Eat it, freak.”
“Make me, freak,” Diesel laughed.
“If you two are quite finished?” the Major asked.
Grimm and Diesel both looked to the old man, their smiles disappearing. Diesel stood quickly, clicked her heels together. Despite her torn and bloodstained clothes, the weariness in her face, the girl saluted the Major with military precision.
“Apologies, sir.”
“You two hit the showers,” the Major ordered, studying the dead plants around them. “This exercise has cost us a great many resources, and almost cost us everything. So get yourself fed, cleaned up. I want a full sitrep in thirty minutes.”
“Yessir,” Diesel rep
lied.
Grimm nodded at Lemon, and together, he and Diesel marched through the greenhouse, boots clomping in unison, back up the stairs. Fix heaved a heavy sigh, rose unsteadily to his feet. The big boy looked like ten kilometers of rough road.
“Are you all right, soldier?” the Major asked.
The boy nodded. “Took a little from myself. Didn’t wanna hurt the garden too much.”
“Get yourself a meal, then get some rack time.” The old man nodded at the bloodstained concrete. “You’ve earned it. Good work, soldier.”
Fix grinned at the praise, seemed to stand a foot taller despite his obvious fatigue. He offered a brisk salute, which the Major returned, and with a nod to Lemon, the boy left the greenhouse by the stairwell. The Major watched him go, turned to the girl with a twinkling eye and a gentle smile.
“All right,” he said. “Where do you want to start?”
“How…,” Lemon began. “He…You…This…”
“How did he do that?” the Major asked.
Lemon nodded, rubbed her eyes. “Right. That. Yeah.”
“We call it transference,” the Major explained. “Fix has the ability to repair damaged tissue. As far as I can tell, he accelerates the body’s natural regenerative properties. But, for want of a better term, he has to take the energy from another living thing to fuel the process.” The old man sighed, looking at one of the dead trees. “Shame. I was very much looking forward to a few more of those pears.”
The Major looked at Lemon to see if she had more questions, but the girl was gawping around the room and just trying to stop her head exploding.
“What is this place?” she finally managed.
“An abandoned military installation,” the Major replied. “I served here many years ago. Before the war. But in answer to what I think you’re asking, it’s a sanctuary. A training facility, where Homo superior can live free of persecution, and help in the search for more of our kind.”
“Wait…Homo superior?” Lemon asked.
The Major knelt in front of Lemon, that gentle smile on his face. “That’s right.”
“Wassat mean?”
“It means people like you, young lady.”
The old man grinned, scruffed the hair on her head.
“It means people like us.”
“How’s that?” Abraham asked.
“BETTER,” Cricket replied. “TWENTY-SEVEN POINT FOUR PERCENT IMPROVEMENT.”
“This gyro got cut up pretty good. Think I’ve got a replacement, though.”
The big bot tilted his head, more than a little put off by the feeling of this strange boy tinkering with his innards. He was laid out belly-down on the floor of the New Bethlehem workshop, Abraham hanging from a work-sling above. The walls were lined with racks of salvage and tech-gear, the half-built bodies of a dozen WarBots arrayed around them. A voice-controlled servo arm assisted Abraham as he worked, another remote loading crane transporting parts to and fro. The bots looked homemade, scavved together out of repurposed parts. Cricket could see a long drafting table on one side of the workshop, several grubby whiteboards stuck to the wall above it, all covered in a dizzying array of hand-drawn schematics.
This boy was obviously something of a technical wizard.
“You know, it’s strange,” Abraham said, screwdriver between his teeth.
“WHAT’S STRANGE, MASTER ABRAHAM?” Cricket replied.
“You can stop calling me master, Paladin. Abraham’s fine when we’re alone.”
Paladin…
Cricket rankled at the new name Sister Dee had given him, but he couldn’t tell Abraham his real one—not unless he wanted the boy to work out his secret. He knew from his history banks that paladins were holy knights, back in the days when it was fashionable to wear metal underwear and bash people in the heads with sharp bits of metal and say “prithee” a lot. But in the grand scheme of things, Cricket supposed Paladin wasn’t so bad. He’d been called worse in his time, true cert.
“AS YOU WISH,” he replied, trying to sound as impressive and WarDome-y as he could. “WHAT’S STRANGE, ABRAHAM?”
The boy spoke softly, his features lit by the arc welder in his hands. “WarDome fights were about the only thing Grandfather would let me watch on the feeds as a kid. I saw all your Megopolis bouts—back when you were called the Quixote, I mean. But you never fought hand to hand back then. You always finished your opponents at range if possible. Why the change in tactics last night?”
The big bot felt his self-preservation subroutines kick in at the boy’s question. Abraham obviously had no idea the Quixote’s persona had been replaced with Cricket’s own—the boy thought he was dealing with seventy tons of robotic badass, with years of Dome brawls stored in its memory. If Abraham found out the mind inside this body belonged to a helperbot with no combat experience beyond “running awaaaaay,” he might be inclined to simply wipe Cricket’s core drives and start over.
For a logika, that was basically the same as dying.
“I SOUGHT TO IMPRESS MY NEW OWNER,” Cricket said in his best Domefighter voice. “I AM PROGRAMMED TO ENTERTAIN.”
“Well, you certainly did that.” Abraham nodded, finishing up and replacing Cricket’s armor plating. “The Thunderstorm was a finalist in the regional championship last year. Taking it out was a huge win for New Bethlehem. WarDome is the most popular pastime out here in the wastes…well, besides murder and robbery, I guess. But having a champion WarBot is a great way for a settlement to appear legitimate, attract more people, more talent, more revenue.” The boy glanced to the small portrait hanging on the wall—a middle-aged man with flaming eyes and a halo of light around his head. “Grandpa would be proud.”
“THEY HAD THOSE PICTURES ALL OVER THE WARDOME,” Cricket said, looking the portrait over. “HE’S YOUR GRANDFATHER?”
“Yeah.” The boy rubbed his neck and sighed. “He started the Brotherhood years ago. Ran everything, back when it was just a scattered cult with a few rusty churches. I bet he never imagined we’d have our own city. Our own champion.”
“WHERE IS HE?”
“A few years back, before we took over New Bethlehem…we got ambushed by deviates.” Abraham’s voice went soft. “They killed him. Right in front of us. Almost killed me and Mother, too.”
“I’M SORRY,” Cricket said, not sure if he actually was.
Abraham nodded thanks, shrugged his shoulders as if to throw off some hidden weight. “Mother had him canonized after he died. They call him Saint Michael now. The patron of New Bethlehem.”
“…SO YOU’RE THE GRANDSON OF A SAINT?”
“It sounds way more impressive than it is,” the boy smiled.
Cricket looked Abraham over as he stowed his tools back in his belt. The logika was pretty good at reading humans after living with Silas and Evie for so long, and studying him, Abraham certainly didn’t seem a zealot. He didn’t speak like a boy who believed all this nonsense about purity in his bones, or would have indulged in the cruelty he’d seen other cult members relish. It was strange to think of him as Brotherhood royalty.
“CAN I ASK A QUESTION, MASTER ABRAHAM?”
“Please stop calling me master. We’re friends now. And yes, you can ask.”
“I HEARD SIRENS AFTER THE WARDOME MATCH LAST NIGHT. GUNSHOTS IN THE CITY.”
“Yeah,” Abraham replied. “We had some local troub—”
The workshop door swung open and Sister Dee marched into the room, dark eyes burning. She looked imperious in her flowing white cassock, frightening in her fresh skullpaint. She was flanked on all sides by Brotherhood beatsticks, well armed and beefy. Cricket noted these bullyboys were cowled all in black instead of the traditional Brotherhood red. Better armed. Bigger and meaner.
Elite guard, maybe?
One of the bodyguards was carrying a broken logika in his arms. The bot w
as slender, painted with gold filigree, its face fixed in a horrid grin.
“Well, they destroyed Solomon,” Sister Dee declared.
“Who did?” Abraham asked.
“Those trashbreed mongrels,” she sighed. “Not content with sowing chaos in the city of God, they amuse themselves by destroying helpless machines.”
Cricket watched as the beatstick placed the damaged logika on a workbench. Abraham swung down on his work-sling and leaned over the broken bot’s body. The boy seemed genuinely concerned—more like a person would act around a hurt pet than a simple piece of broken property. Abraham opened up the bot’s chest cavity with a few deft turns of a multi-tool, chewing his lip as he looked inside.
“What did they hit him with?” he frowned. “Every circuit across his boards looks fried. Like…a massive power surge overloaded all his dampeners.”
Cricket tensed, a frisson of excitement dancing on his circuits. That sounded like the work of a certain redheaded trouble-magnet he knew….
“Can you fix it?” Sister Dee asked.
Abraham nodded. “If I can’t fix it, it can’t be fixed, Mother.”
“My handsome genius.” Sister Dee smiled, glancing at Cricket. “And how fares our mighty Paladin?”
“Superficial damage.” Abraham pushed his tech goggles up onto his brow and rubbed his eyes. “His armor is built to take a real beating, and he has some self-repair modules built in. He’ll be fully operational by tonight.”
“Wonderful,” Sister Dee said. “See that you give it a proper paintjob, won’t you? Jugartown has heard about our victory, and they’ve already sent a challenge. I want our Paladin looking the part before it represents New Bethlehem again.”
“Yes, Mother,” Abraham said.
“With a champion logika on the local circuit, New Bethlehem’s fame will only rise. More and more folk will flock to our banner, and our faith. You made an excellent decision in purchasing this bot, Abraham.” The woman touched the boy’s face, skullpaint twisting as she smiled. “You make your mother terribly proud.”