Didi and the Gunslinger

by Larsen, Patti

  She has to have a working gunslinger. And that means risking waking him completely. She could be triggering a repeat of his initial wakening. Or, getting exactly what she asked for. Either way, she has no choice, unless she decides to just shut him down and walk away.

  Not going to happen. “G.S. 1275,” she says. “Activate.”

  She’s ready to duck, just in case. And hopes, when Pip flaps away in clear fear, she hasn’t just sealed their doom.

  ***

  Chapter Fifteen

  His blue eyes darken, go dead, his entire system shutting down. Didi grinds her teeth together in frustration as he dies, kicking the metal under her boots as she hisses soft curses to herself.

  She should have just left well enough alone. Now see what she’s done. But, even as she chastises herself for rushing into activation on a machine that’s been in stasis for over fifty years, blue flares in his panels and eyes again and his entire body shudders.

  It’s an impressive sight, over six and a half feet of plastanium shivering like a wind chime in a strong wind. Didi holds her breath, heart pounding as the gunslinger shifts his feet, head lowering, one hand rising to press to the side of his face plate. Is he human under there still? She knows some of the gunslingers retained their faces, parts of their bodies used to augment the bond between metal and flesh. He might have a normal skeleton in places, even muscles and tendons, nerve endings bonded to the inside of the plastanium. From the schematics she’s studied, the creators did their best to make sure the gunslingers felt as much as possible, finding that their humanity was the best defense against mental degradation.

  He groans softly, hand falling to his side with a soft clang as he looks up and stares at her.

  “Hello,” he says, voice soft. “I’m G.S. 1275. Are you in need of assistance?”

  She almost cries. Her throat closes over, both hands rising to cover her mouth, cutting off her sob of relief as she nods and nods and nods at the gunslinger.

  “Can you tell me your name?” His voice is kind, though stiff, as though he hasn’t used it in a long time. Well, he hasn’t, has he? He looks around a moment, seems to freeze. “And where we are?”

  “Didi.” She chokes out her name, takes a breath and tries again as Pip lands on her shoulder and rubs his cheek against hers in comfort. “Didi Duke.”

  “Hello, Didi Duke.” The gunslinger’s servos hum gently as he reaches out one hand to her. She shakes it in stunned silence, amazed at how warm his plastanium now feels, at how gentle his touch is. As his hand drops again, his arm jerks, twitches, falls. “I seem to be experiencing some glitches in my systems,” he says, apologetic of all things. She almost giggles, feels the hysterical reaction hopping and jumping in her solar plexus. Trampolining bubbles of humor she’s sure will turn into uncontrolled sobbing if she lets them out.

  “Sorry about that,” she says, gesturing at his chest. “Your fission chip is damaged. And there was some brain tissue loss.”

  He nods, chin tilting sideways and, for the life of her, she feels him looking inward. “Understood,” he says. Is that regret? Her heart twists. She wasn’t expecting him to appear so human. He’s a suit of metal and plastic. But his brain is like hers. “Bypassing.”

  “You can do that?” Fascination finally wins over panic and fear at what she’s done.

  “My systems are designed to function at a sixteenth of capacity,” he says. “Battlefield requirements.”

  Right. So he can keep fighting and killing even if he’s damaged. “Will it make it hard for you to function?”

  He has no lungs, but she swears he sighs. “No,” he says, straightening then, saluting her gently. “I am now fully functional within reduced parameters.” She needs to know what those are, but it can wait. Right now, they have to get out of this cargo bay. She’s suddenly acutely aware of the fact that she’s not only reactivated a gunslinger, a criminal offense, she’s certain, but she’s done so in a hidden bunker where Jackus could return at any moment.

  She grins then, feeling evil delight grow inside her. Well then, what’s her hurry after all?

  “Do you know what happened to you?” Pip’s red eye hasn’t stopped whirring.

  “Deactivation occurred 52 standard years ago,” he says. “Earth calendar time.” He hesitates, though whether because of his damaged brain or another reason Didi can’t guess. “With the development of our mech replacements and the proven unreliability of the gunslinger model, all G.S. units were decommissioned on Earth and their physical bodies interred as due their honor.” He looks down at his hands. “And yet, I seem to be here.”

  Interesting. She knew that part about his history. So what were a cargo hold of gunslingers doing here on Trash Heaven? They were half a galaxy from Earth.

  “Thank you for reviving me, Didi,” he says. “I have spent the last half a century wondering when my final end would come.”

  Pip coughs in her ear. “You were aware?”

  “The presence of my chip ensured the survival of my human brain,” he says. So matter- of-fact, though Didi’s chest compresses in sympathy. All those years of quiet and solitude. “It was my understanding I might be of further assistance, with the passage of time and no final rest.”

  She’s grateful, no matter the reason for his continued existence. “Speaking of which,” Didi says as Pip flaps his agitation against the side of her head. “I could use your help.”

  “The mission?” He seems willing to listen, so Didi dives into her story, telling him about Dad and the Underlord and all the things she’s been hanging onto. She doesn’t mean to meander or weep or even mention Jackus, but it all pours out and she can’t stop herself once she starts.

  When she’s done, she’s wiping the last of her tears and snot away from her face with the hem of her glove, spent and exhausted from the task, but feeling better for it.

  The gunslinger has been silent the entire time. When she finally finishes, his body shifts toward her and he gently, oh-so-gently, pats her free shoulder with one giant hand.

  “I’m so sorry for your troubles,” he says.

  She looks up at him, startled by the gesture and the kindness in his voice. She never expected this, is shocked and floored by it. And yet, she shouldn’t be, should she? Pip’s personality comes shining through no matter his metal parts. “Does that mean you’re going to help me?”

  The gunslinger straightens. “Have you contacted the authorities?” All business again. “This planet must have an outpost of the Galactic Conjunction? Mechcops?”

  Well, she hasn’t. “I raised you to help me,” she says.

  “I was decommissioned for a reason, Didi Duke,” he says, soft and sad. “I am no longer an authority or carry any power in the galaxy. To act on your behalf would be done illegally.”

  This she hadn’t considered. “The people who decommissioned you left you to rot in a cargo container on a trash planet.” He doesn’t react. “My father needs you. I need you. You’re a gunslinger.”

  “I was a gunslinger,” he says, that same gentle, weary tone in his voice. “And while I am grateful for this renewed taste of life, I fear your need lies elsewhere. Now, if you would please remove my chip and return me to rest. I would suggest you then proceed immediately to your nearest GC outpost and report your father’s kidnapping so the proper authorities can begin his rescue.”

  She feels the impossible need to stomp one foot on the ground, like a petulant child whose toy isn’t working the way she wants it to. Blikey, she saved him from another fifty years living in silence. Maybe all that time in the dark did more damage to him than she thought. Didi raises one hand, swipes it in his direction, but she has no strength behind it and it doesn’t land, that blow.

  Only to her heart.

  “Dung it,” she whispers. Turns and runs from the cargo bay, head down, heart dragging under her boots.

  ***

  The gunslinger stands alone and silent in the quiet. He tries not to look at the fallen bodies of his
men and women, the soldiers he led into so many battles. He knows them all, recognizes them, even in pieces. Knows it was his weapon that laid them low, finally, though the government who swore to them they would be treated with final respect and sent to their peace has let them down, as they were let down so many times before.

  If he could weep for them, he would, his fallen folk. Instead, he stands at attention, granting them the only gesture of respect he is able.

  He was wrong to want to wake. He sees that now, the image of the girl in his head fading, shunted to the side by the systems reset he’s been forced to activate. The time of the gunslinger is over. The tiny seed of hope he clung to these years of silence, while the programs of patience and maintenance they gave him kept his mind from dissolving into darkness, is fading as fast as his memory of the dark haired girl.

  He will wait for the girl Didi Duke to return and shut him down. Doing so should deactivate his self-destruct system, something he’s been unable to accomplish. Sixteen hours remain. Surely she will be back in that time.

  If not, he will test the flight system in his cyborg body and hope it has enough power to carry him out of the atmosphere. Or his destruction will take most of this planet with him.

  ***

  Chapter Sixteen

  Didi staggers into the trash, the heat of the day taking her breath away. But she doesn’t care, just wants to run into the garbage and find a place to collapse. Not that she’s quitting, she won’t admit that to herself just yet. But Dad is gone and so is her house. Jackus is hunting her and the only hope she has is a run-down piece of rubbish who won’t do what he’s programmed to do, snargle it all.

  Pip flutters as she stumbles, clinging to her too tight. She brushes him angrily from her shoulder, forcing him to take wing. Didi rubs at the painful cut he’s made, the small puncture oozing. She’s already filthy, but the fresh damage makes her feel like she’s failed at last.

  “You have to shut him down.” Pip lands hard, voice sharp edged and hissing. “You can’t just leave him in there like that, Didi. Who knows what mischief he’ll get into. And, if Jackus finds him—”

  “Hope he does.” Didi doesn’t care she’s shouting. “Hope he stumbles in there and that rugging blikey gunslinger opens fire.”

  Pip blinks, settles. “I know you’re upset,” he says.

  “Shut your beak.” She turns her back on him. “Don’t want to hear another peep from you, corbie. Not one.” She stomps off, deeper into the territory. Where ruddy else is she going to go, blarg it? Back to the crater that was home? She shakes her head, arms crossed over her chest, old blood flaking from her skin in the heat before sticking to her in a mucky mess as she sweats.

  She’ll have to find a way to the city herself, see if she can catch the magrail. Maybe the gunslinger’s suggestion isn’t a bad one if the farging pile of useless scrap won’t help her the way he’s meant to. She should rewire his brain or shut down his full activation and just make him come with her.

  That’d serve him, rightly. Make him do her bidding while his human brain couldn’t do a thing to make her stop. She stomps to a halt, jaw aching from tension as she forces herself to unclench. When she glances back over her shoulder, she’s surprised how far she’s come, the cargo bay long vanished in the trash. And not a glimmer of Pip to be seen.

  He’s taken her warning to heart, the stupid bird. Just when she needs someone to yell at. Well, forget him, then. She spins and stalks further, heading vaguely west without a plan or a hope or even a breath of anything that might keep her moving. And yet, she goes. Moving.

  Because Dad. She can’t let him down.

  When she finally staggers to a halt, sinking into the interior of an abandoned skimmer, the front seat still mostly intact, Didi shades her eyes from the beating sun, cursing herself for forgetting her bag back at the cargo bay. Defeated at last, she shrinks down into the crisped upholstery, the edge of the seat missing from some kind of blast, closing her eyes against the bitter sun.

  She’ll have to go back then, there’s nothing solving it. She has to have water, above all else. In fact, with all the crying she’s been doing, she’s likely dehydrated as it is. Tears. What a waste of water. Didi grunts to herself, unable to muster even a hint of happy.

  Something rattles in the trash behind her, the faintest sound of debris falling. She should sit up and look, just in case. But no, it’s nothing. Just garbage falling over garbage. The story of her life.

  A shadow falls over her face before she opens her eyes to look.

  And into the beady black eyes of a trash rat. One whose snout oozes where a nose used to be. Before she can cry out or lift a finger to fight, they swarm her and darkness swallows her whole as the bottom of the skimmer gives out and she falls into black.

  ***

  The gunslinger hears the beating of wings on the doorway to the cargo bay. Squawking, the tap of metal claws on exit. He listens, curious. The girl Didi had a crow. His mind is slower than he would like, more of it shut off than is really good for him. And while it means reactivating parts that are damaged, he needs those parts.

  The door whooshes open and the crow flies inside, panting as it lands at his feet while his systems reset into the part of his brain where the most decay has happened.

  And triggers the image of the laughing girl with the black hair while the crow speaks.

  “Didi!”

  The girl. She needs his help. And he turned her away. His body surges with adrenaline, the plasma pumping through his system not created to handle such a flow. He bends at the waist, seizing the crow gently but firmly, raising it to eye level.

  “Where is she?”

  ***

  Didi wakes to the sound of chittering, to the overwhelming stench of furred and scaled bodies pressed close together, their waste mingling with the fermenting, rotting scent she now knows is her clothing caked in the blood of the bole.

  Perhaps it is that smell that has saved her so far. The trash rats have her surrounded, but keep their distance, their noseless queen hovering, squealing at those who try to prod Didi. She’s deep undertrash, the faint glow from her goggles giving her sight as she slides them down over her eyes and examines her surroundings.

  Calm settles over her despite her circumstances, the surety of someone who knows her life is over and fear has long since fled to another place. Surreal, this experience, but she embraces the flat, quiet silence in her heart and lies back after a moment, sighing out a heavy breath.

  The rats skitter back, then crowd in again, as if sensing she’s given up. And she has. She has nothing to fight them with. Her bag is back at the cargo hold, her laser pen there. Maybe her boots might serve as weapons, except she’s wedged in, the ceiling of garbage above her just high enough for the rats. The hole she fell through has been sealed. Either that or they’ve dragged her deeper into the warren of their tunnels.

  Had she her protections fully charged, she might be able to keep them at bay. Or with her generator, summon another bole. If, if, if. So many possibilities out of her reach. And no one knows she’s here.

  She feels the shift in their intent, the undertrash chamber heating with it as the queen squeals her attack cry, muffled and snotty with the weeping fluid that was her nose. Calm flees at the last second and Didi screams, unable to stop herself, as the trash rats flood over her.

  The first concussion of sound and heat hits her through the garbage, the rats freezing in place as debris rains down on them all. When the roof of the nest blows apart a moment later, she gapes upward in shock, believing at first she is dreaming, escaping her death with a last-minute mental break. Or, that her soul has already left her body, that silly energy field abandoning her human form before the actual end. While she debates her belief in souls and mental breaks, the rats scream their fury at the invasion of their territory as a large, looming shadow casts over her and a second plasma blast sends them scattering.

  Glowing blue eyes look down at her, at least ten feet above. �
��You are well, Didi Duke?”

  She chokes on her answer, nods instead. The gunslinger leaps down into the space, one hand grasping her as best he can in the narrow gap and pulling her to her feet. Didi clings to the heat of his metal body while a brave rat—or foolish for all—throws itself at the gunslinger’s leg. His hand moves with robot swiftness, the barest flash of light from his weapon as his computer system analyzes the threat and dispenses only the necessary force to vaporize the wriggling creature gnawing on his shin. Didi’s mind, thoroughly shaken by the ordeal, can still find amazement in the simplicity and beauty of the cyborg’s systems.

  As long as she has that, she figures she’ll be all right.

  He leaps for the surface, the barest bending of his knees her warning as his arm slips around her waist. “Hang on.” She clings to him, looking down as he launches them to the surface of the trash with a quick burst of power from the base of his boots. He has thrusters, functioning thrusters. She hadn’t thought of those, will have to factor them into her plan to rescue Dad.

  Just as soon as she finds a way to get clean and have a long, ugly cry.

  When he sets her on her feet, she stumbles, her boots deactivated. Either the rats figured out how to sever the connections or the power has run out. Neither scenario makes her happy. In fact, her inactive boots, though a minor part of her displeasure in that moment, serve as the center of her attention—her very angry and frustrated attention—as she siphons off her desire to crumple and let go into a passionate need to break something.

  Anything but the nothing she felt down below the trash. Anything.

  “Didi!” Pip lands on her shoulder but she slaps him away, sending him squawking free.

  “You idiot!” She shouts at the gunslinger, hands fisted at her sides, a new focus for her freshly woken fury. It feels good to vent, even if, a tiny part of herself admits while in the middle of her rant, it’s unfair and she should be thanking him for saving her life. “Do you want the whole planet to know where we are?”