“True cert,” Lemon whispered. “If you ever had doubts about my affection for you, Riotgrrl, I hope crawling into a sewer for you will put ’em to beddy-byes.”
Eve squeezed her friend’s hand, smiled in the dark.
“I’m glad you’re with me, Lem.”
The redhead glanced at her and grinned.
“You’re my bestest. Rule Number One in the Scrap, remember?”
“Stronger together.” Eve smiled.
“Together forever,” Lemon nodded.
Hand in hand, the girls stole off into the dark.
In a skinbar aboard a rusting freighter, a dog that wasn’t a dog lifted his head.
He snuffled the air with his black snout, licked at his nose. His sister was snuffling, too, a low whine rising in the back of her throat over the pulsing, hypnotic rhythms. A dark booth. Fauxleather couches. Strobing lights and acres of skin.
The big dog barked, loud enough to be heard over the music.
A girl with a back full of tattoos stopped her swaying, dragged a long whip of black hair out of her face and scoped the man whose lap she was dancing on.
“He’s not gonna bite, is he?”
“He don’t bite, darlin’.” The man smiled. “That’s my job.”
The smaller dog barked, fluffy white jowls drawn back from little razor teeth. The man sighed like gravel. Lifting the girl with one arm, he stood slow, set her down gentle. The floor was sloping about ten degrees from the lean of the ship.
Dropping a plastic credstik on the table, he slammed back a waiting glass of ethanol. He buttoned his black shirt back up over a scarred chest. Slipped on a dusty black coat. A red glove on his right hand. And reaching down, he picked up a pristine white collar and fastened it around his neck.
The girl leaned back against the table, ran the credstik across painted lips.
“You’re not really a preacher, are you?” she smiled.
“Why? You got sins you wanna confess?”
The girl laughed, and the man grinned like a shark. He checked his rifle. His pistols. Reaching into his coat, he pulled out a lump of synth tobacco and wadded it into his cheek. Taking the girl’s hand, he kissed her knuckles, pale blue eyes sparkling above that shark-tooth smile.
“Duty calls, darlin’,” he said.
The little dog barked again, insistent.
“I’m comin’, goddammit,” Preacher growled.
And pulling on his hat, he stepped out into the rusting Armada streets.
1.18
COLLISION
“I didn’t think they made sewer rats that big,” Lemon muttered.
“I didn’t think they made anything that big.” Eve nodded.
“I kept waiting for them to stand up and ask if we needed directions.” Lemon shuddered. “I swear, one of them was wearing a waistcoat.”
The trek through the crumbling Armada sewers had been torturous, the stench unholy. But at least it had been relatively brief. After an hour or so, Ezekiel had led them up a corroded service ladder, punched an old manhole cover loose and hauled them up into a blind alley somewhere in the warren of the Armada undercity.
The streets were cracked and choked with trash, walled on all sides by hulls of ships, rising into the sky. Eve realized now that it was Saturday night, and the thoroughfare beyond the alley was packed. Young turks cruising in their colors. Romper stompers eyeing off the alley gentry. Chemkids and scenekillers wandering from street bar to smoke den. Rusted logika running to and fro at their owners’ bidding through the crowd. Leather and paintstick. Neon and bloodstains. Guns and razors and knives.
A Brotherhood posse stood wrapped in their red bulletproof cassocks on a street corner, preaching about the evils of biomodification and the coming of the Lord. Eve hunched her shoulders, turned away quickly. She had no idea if word about her had spread from the Dregs chapter to the mainland, but she was in no shape or mood to find out.
The night was stinking hot, made all the worse by the filth on their clothes. Folks in the street gave them a wide berth—Ezekiel’s missing arm earned an odd look or three, but it was a testament to the roughness of the neighborhood that nobody called whatever passed for the Law. Eve supposed it was lucky they smelled the way they did. You’d need a gas mask to even consider robbing them, and there was nothing on them to make the job worthwhile.
After a quick search, Ezekiel found an old fire hydrant, still miraculously hooked into the undercity water system. Taking Excalibur from Eve, he smashed off the metal seal and was rewarded with a burst of high-pressure gray and a blaring alarm. Dirty street urchins came out in droves to dance in the spray. Eve washed as hard as she could, scrubbing at her fauxhawk before stepping aside to let Lemon and Ezekiel take a turn under the fountain.
“Come on,” the lifelike said. “Freebooters will be on their way. Destruction of city property will get us lined up against a hull and shot.”
“Lawbreaker,” Lemon smirked. “Always had a thing for the badboys.”
“Put it back in your pants, Miss Fresh,” Cricket growled.
“What good will it do me in there?”
Ezekiel hefted Kaiser, led them through the crowd, pushing and shoving off the main drag and into the warrens between the rusted hulks. Corroding ships rose all around them, plastered with solcells and repurposed wiring. Eve saw an impossible tangle of footbridges and sturdier spans interconnecting the decks above. It was like the work of a mad spider, spooling iron and steel between the wrecks.
In a side street piled high with old plastic mannequins and broken vending machines, they found a stairwell marked UNDERGROUND. Ezekiel led them down into a grubby foyer. Cracked walls were covered with faded street art, automated turnstiles leading down to a lower level. A handful of Freebooters wearing Armada bandannas over their faces lurked in the corners, keeping an eye on the evening crowd.
“They have a working subway here?” Eve asked.
Ezekiel nodded. “Salvaged from the ruins of the original city Armada was built on. It’s the easiest way to get to the Tanker District. The upper decks are like a maze.”
“How we gonna pay for tix?”
Ezekiel sucked his lip, glanced at the Freebooter bullyboys. “That is a problem.”
Cricket’s mismatched eyes rolled in his bobblehead. “Magnificent plan, Stumpy.”
“Well, in that department, I got us covered.” Lemon reached into the pocket of her dirty cargos, flashed three shiny credstiks. “The ride’s on me, kids.”
“Where’d you get those?” Cricket groaned.
“I was cutting pockets in Los Diablos before you were a subroutine, Crick. Weekend crowds are always the fizziest, and these mainlanders ain’t the sharpest.”
Lemon led the quintet past the Armada thugs, who seemed keener on watching the chemgirls stroll by than doing anything close to their jobs. Flashing a stik under the scanner, she opened the turnstile with a flourish and a bow, bumping fists with Eve as she brushed past. Ezekiel consulted a nightmarish map that looked like it had been scrawled by a drunken madman with a hundred different-colored inks.
Eve squinted at the chaos. “What are we looking for?”
“The Gibson,” Ezekiel murmured. “Tanker District . . . Ah, there it is.”
The lifelike led them down to Platform 4, their motley crew joining the rest of the evening crowd. Eve was a little overwhelmed by it all—the heat underground was unbearable, sweat burning her one good eye. Everything was filthy with ash and dust.
She looked down at her hand, at the thick bands of electrical cable around her. She imagined she could feel the currents in the walls, hear the hum of the power surging through the flickering lights and along the rusted tracks before her. The platform was packed with people, headed home after a hard night’s crush. She wondered what they’d do if they knew what she was. Who she was.
Polluted.
Deviate.
Abnorm.
“You okay, Riotgrrl?” Lemon asked.
Eve nodded slow
. Sighed. “Yeah.”
“Listen . . .” The girl chewed her lip. “We gotta talk later, you and me. Serious, like.”
Eve looked at her bestest. Lemon’s face was a little pale under her freckles. Her usual jokester demeanor nowhere to be seen. Instead, she looked genuinely worried.
“. . . Okay.”
Eve heard the squeal of corroded brakes. The rumble of the tracks. A rustbucket subway train shuddered to a halt at the platform, squealing and shrieking. Its cabin was skinless, its modified electric engine open to the air, wrapped in long tangles of dull copper wire. The whole train rattled and hummed like it was about to explode. Its driver wore black goggles, the Armada bandanna covering his mouth caked with grime.
“Awwwwwl abawwwwwd!” he bellowed. “All stops to Downtown, step up!”
Eve and her crew bundled into a rear cabin with blown-out windows. A young girl in an Armada bandanna cranked the doors closed behind them. Eve plopped down on a plastic seat scuffed and scarred by decades of penknife poetry; Ezekiel placed Kaiser on her lap. Looking around the cabin, she saw a rough-and-tumble crowd. Cybernetic limbs. Shadowed eyes and stim stares. A man in an electric wheelchair slowly trundled past, a sign hung around his neck that read VETERAN. He had no legs. The winged sun and shield of a Daedalus infantryman was tattooed on his forearm. The wheelchair reminded Eve of her grandpa.
Except he wasn’t my—
The train began moving. Ka-chunka-chunking along the tracks. Dirty air howling through broken windows. Eve chewed her lip, wondering how she was going to break the news to Lemon. Wondering where Ezekiel was taking them. Thinking of that cell, her family, waiting to hear shiny boots on the stairs.
Glancing into the crowd, she saw a man at the other end of the carriage. He was a big guy, dressed in a long black coat and oldskool cowboy hat, a white collar at his throat.
He was looking right at her.
Eve met his stare without blinking. Rule Number Four in the Scrap: Never look away. Never show the weak, even if you feel it.
The man held her gaze, his eyes a shocking shade of pale blue. And ever so slow, he lifted a finger to his hat, tipped the brim.
“Ezekiel,” she murmured.
The lifelike glanced up, eyebrow raised.
“That guy.” She nodded. “Black coat. Black hat.”
“. . . The priest?”
“Yeah. He’s creeping on me.”
The lifelike stared across the cabin. The man inclined his head and smiled the way she figured sharks used to smile at seal pups before the oceans turned black. But he didn’t move. Didn’t fuss. Maybe he was just the harmless kind of creepy. . . .
The train began slowing, brakes grinding in a chorus of awful, off-key screams.
“Tanker District!” bawled the driver. “Tanker District c’here!”
“This is our stop,” Ezekiel said.
The train ground to a halt, spitting Eve and a few dozen others onto the platform. An old lady pushing a trolley full of spare parts. A logika with a faulty dynamo, hobbling and wobbling. Ezekiel stepped off with Kaiser under his arm, the blitzhund’s tail wagging. Eve searched the platform, looking for the priest in the thinning crowd. She saw ancient billboards on the walls. Plastic models and plastic smiles. The train doors hissed closed, and the metal beast lumbered off down the tracks.
Ka-chunka-chunk.
Ka-chunka-chunk.
“Eve,” Ezekiel said. “Get behind me.”
She turned at the warning note in his voice, saw the creeper in the black coat at the other end of the platform, leaning against the exit. The disembarked passengers were filtering past him, through the turnstiles and up the stairs leading to the surface. But the man’s eyes were locked firmly on Eve. Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out something dark and wadded it into his cheek. She saw a red glove on his right hand. A huge black dog with thick, wild fur sat obediently on the concrete beside him.
Eve noticed the beast didn’t blink.
Didn’t breathe.
“That’s a blitzhund,” she said.
“Who is this cowboy?” Lemon muttered.
“Capital T, I’m guessing.”
The platform was empty now. A rusty breeze whipped up the trash in the train’s wake. A globe flickered on the wall, metallic echoes rang on cracked concrete, far into the city’s belly. The billboard models smiled on inanely, faces pocked with graffiti scrawl.
“Are you a priest?” Lemon called.
The man quirked an eyebrow. Spoke with a voice like wet gravel.
“Preacher.”
“Can we help you?” Ezekiel called.
“You can.” He sniffed. “But I’m pretty cert you won’t.”
“Try me.”
“You can step aside.” The man nodded. “I got business with Miss Carpenter here. Nobody else. So if the rest of you’d like to be on your merry, well, I’d be much obliged.”
“I’m not stepping anywhere,” Ezekiel said. “Aside or otherwise.”
The man spat a stream of sticky brown onto the concrete at his feet.
“Mmmf,” he grunted.
The gun seemed to appear from nowhere. One moment, the Preacher’s hand was empty, the next, he was unloading a dozen shots at Ezekiel’s torso. The lifelike twisted away with that inhuman speed Eve had become accustomed to, but he was still too slow, three shots catching him in the chest. He toppled backward, blood spraying from the fist-sized holes in his back. Kaiser fell to the concrete beside him, yelping and growling.
“Zeke!” Eve screamed.
Two more shots rang out, the Preacher firing into the ceiling.
Concrete dust drifted around Eve’s head. The smell of blood hanging with the rust in the air. She fell still as a statue.
“Now.” The Preacher turned his pistol on Lemon. “I trust I have your full attention. The contract I accepted on you stipulates dead or alive, Miss Carpenter. And I like to take that as a challenge. But Little Red here”—the man waved his gun at Lemon’s face—“she ain’t worth more than a devil’s promise to me, breathin’ or no.”
“You’re a bounty hunter,” Lemon spat.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing, darlin’.”
Eve’s eyes were on Ezekiel, sprawled on the concrete with three smoking holes in his chest. His eyes open wide and sightless. A part of her was screaming. Her breath was burning her lungs. But Eve’s mind was racing. Pulse quickening. This Preacher meant business. Rule Number Eight in the Scrap:
The dead don’t fight another day.
“D-don’t hurt her,” Eve said. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
“There’s a clever girl.” The Preacher reached into his belt, tossed a pair of magnetic restraints onto the floor in front of her. “Now you put those bracelets on. Careful, like.”
“Evie,” Cricket begged. “Don’t do it.”
The man drew another pistol from his coat, pointed it at the little logika. “You make one more squeak, Rusty, you gonna find out true cert whether bots go to heaven or not. I’m bettin’ you’re liable to be disappointed with the answer.”
“I’m not afraid of y—”
“Crick, be quiet,” Eve said.
“Riotgrrl . . .”
“It’s okay, Lem.” Eve bent down, slipped the restraints around her wrists. She felt them cinch tight with a faint electric hum. “Okay, they’re on, you happy?”
“I’m always happy, darlin’. Now. Lil’ Red and Rusty. Back off. Way off.”
“Do as he says,” Eve said.
Lemon and Cricket retreated, pressed their backs against the platform wall. Lemon’s eyes were wide, face pale as death. A few chemkids bound for the next train wandered into the station, took one look at the proceedings and wandered right back out again. The man pushed himself off the doorframe, walked across the platform, the spurs on his boots ringing. The big black blitzhund prowled alongside him, eyes on Kaiser. The Preacher motioned to the exit with his pistols.
“Ladies first.”
E
ve glanced at Lemon, shook her head. “Don’t let her do anything stupid, Crick.”
She took one last glance at Ezekiel in his pool of blood, tears welling in her eyes. Kaiser whimpered. “It’s okay, puppy,” she murmured, shuffling toward the exit. The Preacher took a last look around the platform, now echoing with the ka-chunkachunk of a train inbound from the other direction. He tipped his hat to Lemon and Cricket.
“Go with God, children.”
The Preacher fell into step behind Eve, pistols aimed at her back. The roar of the approaching train grew louder. The sound of boots and spurs rang on the concrete behind her. Eve heard Lemon’s bewildered curse; the skin on her neck prickled. Then came running feet, a warning growl, a damp explosion of breath.
“Sonofa—”
Eve turned, saw Ezekiel crash-tackle the Preacher, planting him face-first into the wall. The brick split, blood sprayed, pistols boomed. The Preacher’s blitzhund lunged at the lifelike’s legs, sinking its fangs into his shin. Eve could see red rivers running down Ezekiel’s flight suit, bone gleaming through the holes in his back. But she could swear they were smaller than they’d been a minute ago. . . .
The black dog was growling, ripping Ezekiel’s leg to ribbons. Eve didn’t dare try to pull it away—it could take her hand off with a single bite. But the blitzhund was a thing of metal and circuits. Chips and hydraulics. Its brain was meat, but its body was just like that Goliath in the Dome. Just like those Spartans in Tire Valley.
Eve drew a deep breath, stretched out her manacled hands, feeling for the blitzhund’s current. Trying to summon her power again, drag it up from whatever corner of her head it was hidden in.
“Evie!” Lemon screamed.
Ezekiel and the Preacher were still brawling. Ignoring the dog, the lifelike slammed the bounty hunter into a concrete support, splitting it at the base. His fist crunched into the man’s solar plexus, his temple, his nose. The rage in Ezekiel’s eyes was terrifying, his fury and hatred almost setting them aglow. He drew back his fist and swung again at the Preacher’s bloody jaw. But with the speed of a hummingbird’s wings, the man lifted his right arm and blocked the titanic strength of Ezekiel’s fist.
Eve heard a dull, metallic clunk.