…up until I started to feel my brain fuzzing out again. I jumped out of the drone and waited, cursing. The corruption was worst in the heat of combat. So many variables to calculate, such strong emotions, the pain that was feedback… no, I wasn’t surprised.
Signals from my recon drone, and I grinned without teeth. Rather than jumping in to personally observe, I pumped the footage into the elevator room, making the Jaspa jump in surprise and shout. The Commander merely stood upright from her camp chair, glaring at the wall, as it dissolved into a picture.
A picture of her camp. And of the muzzle flash from the treeline, with the sentries in disarray.
She’d taken most of the experienced troops with her to this raid, I knew. The camp might have had some more there, but many of those left behind were green or wounded, or both.
Fire arced through the night, spread out onto the tents, and the supply wagons. Dark forms dashed through the trees, retreating, as sivvies wailed and tried to fight the fires. A few fell, shot, and that convinced them to leave off.
Harsh business. Not what I would have done, but the Arcadians didn’t seem to have a problem killing unarmed Jaspa. Given that the Jaspa wouldn’t have hesitated to do the same if situations were reversed, I supposed it was only fair.
“You’ve been watching us this whole time,” The Commander stared up, glaring at where she thought I was.
“Guilty as charged,” I said, as they finally, finally got the door wedged, and the sniper went about blowing my drone to pieces. All told I’d lasted a bit under two hours. Not nearly enough for my tastes, but so long as she went to my expectations, it was within the margin of success.
“I will make you pay for this,” she said, as the bulk of her supplies went up in flames.
“What, you’re going to kill me harder?” I chuckled. “We both knew this was no-holds-barred.”
Rage flared in her eyes but only for a moment. Then it was gone, and icy hate remained.
The second the drone turret was down; she was barking orders, sending in the scouts to clear the room. They found nothing. My circuitry-cum-camouflage was still concealing the broadcast node in the wall, and they didn’t have the knowledge to realize that they should be looking for it in the first place.
Then my enemy surprised me.
She stationed sentries throughout the explored part of the complex, gathered the bulk of her force, and left. Middle of the night, six hours to go until dawn, and she was gone.
She hadn’t given up. Wouldn’t have left sentries if that was the case. Why this? Why now?
I moved the drone away, reluctantly. It’s possible she might be able to find it, given the perspective of the movie. I’d taken a risk with that, figured the demoralization worth the gamble. Now I wasn’t sure, though. What was she doing?
I got my answer as torches met, split up, and moved in the night.
Half back west, back to Jaspa lands.
The remainder heading back my way.
They returned to my bunker two hours later, over a hundred strong. Some wounded but not severely. Some tired but with hatred in their faces.
“All or nothing?” I asked her, as my heart sank.
She smiled without anything like humor or kindness. “All for us. Nothing for you. So yes.”
I kept silent as they trekked in, loaded down with packs. The rest of the supplies, the ones that hadn’t been ruined.
They were off the nocturnal schedule now. They could work in shifts, going after me, sheltered from notice by Tyr’s drones.
Still, it wouldn’t matter. So long as my ruse was successful, and she stayed to pattern, it wouldn’t matter. I rallied a bit, knowing that I just needed one more day to bring things to a close.
I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.
Finding nothing in the room she’d spent lives to acquire, the Commander returned to the elevator room and ordered the three doors leading out unsealed. The Jaspa got to work using picks and pry bars, and they had more than enough hands to the task.
I was built sturdy, and that option bought me a few hours, but they were relentless.
More than once I eyed the drop-chute trap I’d put in the elevator room, but I held back. I’d get a few, sure, but that card would be spent. Unless I could guarantee I’d get her, it wasn’t worth it. And for whatever reason… paranoia, intuition, or just plain experience against foes like me, she stuck to the corners of the room whenever possible.
At last my doors were open, and if I’d had lungs I would have held my breath as she considered her options. Now came the moment of truth.
Came, and went, with my usual luck.
“We go down,” she decided, and I felt despair rise up in me. “These demons are always on the lowest level they can get to. He will be down,” she said, and I bit back curses, as they got to work trying to figure out the elevator.
I’d spread my deceptions and done my task too well and jarred her out of the patterns she’d been using to dismantle me. As any human with a grain of sense, she’d seen that her tactics weren’t effective enough and changed. She’d adapted to overcome… and might yet, if what slumbered down there was as bad as Argus thought it would be.
She’d adapted and overcome. Could I do the same?
I supposed we’d find out.
INTERLUDE: SURVIVOR 2
The band itched.
It pushed her breasts up against her chest, and it caught every bit of sweat that oozed down her neck. She didn’t even want to think about the filth and grime building up under there, but it had to stay on, because she had no one else to help her get it back once it was off and there were far, far too many humans around to go naked.
But, for all that, it let her run without her flesh bouncing and tugging uncomfortably against her chest. Such a simple difference a few yards of wrapped cloth made!
Not that she’d had much opportunity to go running since she got here. Since she’d gotten to the Low Binding.
It was a low valley, nestled back in the hills. It had been something once, before the war. A deserted place, full of stone tablets set into rows and tiny, windowless stone houses. Maybe some sort of stasis facility that had failed… the Highbinders had pulled tube after tube from the flat soil, discarding the dead humans inside and using the metal and plastic tubes as raw material for their buildings. Together with scavenged sheet metal and wood planks, the buildings that made up the settlement were as haphazard as their occupants.
The Highbinders, when they ventured outside from their warrens of cramped junk homes, were swathed in cloth, covering every inch of themselves. They looked at everyone and everything about them through goggles of black glass and held up items for appraisal with bandaged hands that were more like mittens of stained cloth.
Some of the humans who dwelled in this place mimicked the Highbinder way of dressing, either partially or fully. At a distance you could mistake them for Highbinders but not close up. The true Highbinders had a stillness to them, a patience that carried through in their motions and speech.
And then there were the way that things under the cloth and bandages moved, every so often. Like worms writhing in dead meat, or like rogue shine twitching, even though they didn’t glow through the cloth like they would if they were infected.
Like how Janan the Honest’s cheek bulged now, something roaming around his face like it was seeking a hole in the cloth.
Foal couldn’t ignore it. With her eyes placed the way they were, she had to keep her head turned to keep looking at Janan. And the motion drew her attention, over and over again, even when she tried to pay it no mind.
Fortunately, the negotiator didn’t seem to mind. “We have completed the evaluation of your chemical.”
Foal nodded, taking care not to bang her head on the low ceiling of the warren. She’d done that a few times already, squeezing in here. They’d neither made concession nor reference to her size and shape, but nor did they complain when it took her more time to get settled, or navigate the t
ight turns and twists of their half-underground structure. She waited for the Highbinder to speak again. Waited as the seconds crawled by, and she had to fight the urge to ask the shrouded figure what they’d decided.
Finally, Janan continued. “We have rated it as fifty-four. It has been added to the lexicon. We expect it to remain in that spot for years. Though that is a conservative estimate. The predictors feel its number may rise, unless another source can be found.”
Foal’s breath hissed out of her before she could stop it. This was good. Fifty-four was in the first hundred. “Thanbk you. Wheb may I have the supplies?”
“Now. However, you have a choice to make.”
Foal’s relief vanished in a heartbeat, replaced with dread as the Highbinder sat a walled tray on the ground. Numbered glass blocks sat within, each containing a different substance. The Highbinder’s voice continued, calm, patient, unruffled as Foal’s panic rose.
She had been afraid of this. While the Highbinders were assessing her find, the price of the medical supplies that her people needed had risen.
Upon her arrival, she had put in the order, and not a single number of what she was seeking was above 80. Now a pair of sixties stared up from the tray, and the prime one, the brown-and-white wrappered pill bottle that sat entombed in glass, sported a 32.
A 32! If they had assessed her little baggy full of drugs as a 32, she could have taken home wagonloads of supplies. She could have taken the profits from the barter and lived like a queen off in the wilderness somewhere…
…no. No she couldn’t. The others needed her. And without the pills that came in that brown and white bottle, living in the wilderness or back at home wouldn’t matter. She’d fall to pieces long before then, her horse and human parts sickening and dying at the join and rotting until she died with them.
“Why is it so high?” Foal asked, reaching out with her stubby human fingers to brush the cube of glass.
“Supplies are depleted. The number is high because we expect great difficulty obtaining more. Did no one explain this to you?”
“They did.” The Highbinders were impartial traders, the only ones in the region that hadn’t been absorbed by the raiders, yet. They rated everything they obtained, in a weird system that had ordinary objects somewhere around three hundred, and luxuries or rarities down in the double digits. She’d never seen anything valued in single digits. Rumor in the marketplace was that if you had to ask what rated that, you couldn’t afford it. But one constant was true, no matter how the numbers rose and fell. If something shifted this much, it was because someone had bought the last of it. Which meant… “Who bought these?”
“I cannot speak of my customers. Again, I ask, did no one explain this to you?”
It was spoken without exasperation, without emotion. But for the first time, those worm-movements in his cheeks were still. Janan’s hand was out of sight, she noticed, under the thick rugs that coated the floor. An alarm? A weapon?
Foal forced herself to calm down. She’d raised her voice, she knew. Now she lowered it again, as she considered her options.
Then a new one occurred to her. “What does this drug do?” She tapped number thirty-two again.
“You wished to trade for it, but you did not know its purpose? Strange.” But Janan’s hand rose from out of the rugs, as he picked up the cube and held it inches from his goggles, turning it with nimble fingers. “It is an immunosuppressant.”
“What does that mean? What is it used for? What do humanbs use it for?” She knew what it did for her people. It kept the rotting disease away. But why would humans want it?
“It is used to prevent a host body from rejecting transplanted tissue or internal nanite structures.”
And with that, Foal had her answer.
Some part of her triumph must have showed on her face, because Janan’s masked forehead bulged, with a series of nervous ripples. He replaced the glass cube and put a handful of numbered tokens in front of her. “As discussed, the trade options in your selected batch have fallen. Please distribute accordingly if you wish to continue.”
Foal picked up the 32 block, stared at it with one eye, before turning her head to consider it with the other eye. For a second she didn’t want to let it go. Wanted to shatter the glass and take the item inside… if the bottle even held any pills.
But she knew what would happen. Even if she survived the theft, the bounties they would place on her would seal her end eventually, if not sooner. And they would track her back to home, and then her friends would die, too.
It was the hardest thing in the world, but Foal put the bottle aside. Then she dipped her head and started placing the tokens on the remaining cubes in the tray.
Much later, with the supplies secured into her saddlebags, she made her way out of the cramped warren, and emerged into the street. It was raining now, turning the gravel paths slick, a sullen wetness from low clouds. Humans hurried past, clutching their hats and hoods, trying to keep the rain out of their faces. Too much chance of a stray shine speck to enjoy a cool shower.
Foal didn’t mind. She didn’t have to fear shine. The machines in her blood saw to that. And that reminded her of the next step of her journey.
She headed down the street, working her way around the muddy patches, ignoring the glares and stares of the humans she passed. Eventually they thinned out, and the buildings shifted from stone and the strange stasis pod shells, to moldering wood planks and sheet metal shacks. Eyes watched her go from windows, but the streets were empty. Most of the residents knew to stay out of sight while the humans were out during the day.
This was the Slough, and things disappeared, here. The gravel gave way to mud as she went, mud and planks, with water flowing down toward the river. There wasn’t much good in here, and she kept a wary eye out for the desperate humans who sometimes prowled this area. Even with the Highbinders forbidding violence, things happened, and those who got too brave could still disappear.
Foal was looking for a very brave woman now.
And she found that woman at the end of a cul-de-sac, surrounded by a cloud of smoke, sucking it through a clay pipe. Old like leather, brown like leather, she wore a broad-brimmed hat with claws of countless beasts worked into the rim. Like a dead sunflower, with black seeds jutting out, it twitched and lifted as the lean woman considered her with watery eyes.
Watery eyes that reflected blue, as light shone up from the neck of her duster. Irritated, the woman adjusted her coat, but not fast enough to hide the telltale glow of shine.
“Horse girl.”
“Deedee.”
“You done with your business? Ready to go?”
“Almost.” Deedee had been Foal’s landlord. Foal hadn’t trusted the inns and camps of the humans here. But here, in the Slough, where the water ran to, the mutants and afflicted and desperate made their homes and were more amenable to the idea of a horse-mutant sleeping in an old woman’s backyard. Especially when the horse had things to trade. Didn’t mean Deedee was Foal’s friend, not by a longshot.
But this might change that, at least for the few hours that Foal needed from her. “This is for you. For help,” Foal said and withdrew a stoppered glass tube from her belt.
“And what’s that? Something to kill the pain?” Deedee lifted an eyebrow. “I’ve tried everything. Nothing helps for long.”
“Somethig. Bnot sure what,” Foal lied. She knew exactly what it was. She’d bled into the tube that morning, and mixed it with water to keep it from clotting. A farewell gift to the old hunter who’d shared her home and stories, one that Foal could give without risk. But now there was a rare drug on the line, and so Foal had to take a risk, a big one. If this worked then she could maybe do it with an ally on her side.
“Then why you giving it to me?” Deedee snorted. “Shit’d probably kill me.”
Foal shook her head. “Bnot sure what it is. Sure what it does. It kills shibe.”
Foal watched the woman parse her sentence, thoughts slowed
by the smoke. Then the woman’s eyes snapped open, before settling into wary slits. “Don’t taunt me so, girl.” Her free hand found its way across her body, hugging her duster, grabbing the patch that stained her ribs like mold on bread.
Foal shook her head. “It works. Take and rub onb the shine. Get it all. Dribnk what’s left over.”
Deedee took it without a word and went inside the shack, after tamping out and leaving her pipe resting on a rack to the side of the door.
Foal waited, expecting cries of pain. She didn’t get that. Didn’t hear anything but the rain, pattering on metal and thatch.
Some time later, Deedee came out, face drawn and lined, staring at Foal. Not with anger, or disgust like most humans did but some unidentified emotion.
“It worked?” Foal asked.
Deedee stepped closer and put her hand on Foal’s shoulder, looked up into her muzzled face. “You tell anyone you have that stuff, and you’re dead, you understand?” The woman said, a few wisps of sweaty, greyed hair escaping from under her hat. “You’ll die hard givin’ them answers and ain’t nothing anyone could do about it.”
“Yes. I unberstand.” Masker had told Foal much the same, when she put forward the idea of trading her blood for the supplies they needed. Even this was a risk that he would have screamed at her about, if he knew what she’d done.
Deedee searched her eyes, then stepped back. “Nothing in this town’s free. Is it?”
“Bno,” Foal said, looking down at her. “I bneed you to come with me.”
The place was called the Shop. Once it had been an old garage, at the edge of the Low Binding. Now it was a gathering place for a different sort of trade than Low Binding practiced.
Deedee led her straight past the “No Mutants” sign jammed into the dirt outside, and Foal resisted the urge to kick it over. Instead she kept her eye on the older woman’s back. She moved with an ease that Foal hadn’t seen from her landlord before, like Vernon stalking a deer, just before he pounced.
Bunker Core (Core Control Book 1) Page 22