Rambling, I’m rambling.
They staggered and walked and staggered some more, with Vargr grabbing her other arm, aiming at the opening and BigDaddy. If anything the two guys made her feel clumsier and stumble more.
“We got you,” Vargr told her when she scowled at him. “Is she being ungrateful?”
Rutger considered her. “I believe so.”
“What?” She looked from Rutger to Vargr. “Oh, okay. Thank you? I’d curtsey, but that’s not happening.”
“Feisty as ever. She’s cured.” Rutger laughed.
After letting the other man take her weight, Vargr released her arm and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “We hadn’t heard you talk for hours. You just made sounds when we asked you anything.”
All this attention was making her feel weird and helpless, and she hated helpless more than anything. Her foot bumped something, and she looked around. Whatever had happened here had left a shambles. Rows of single bedrolls lay on the ground, along with IV drip stands, tubing, syringes, and other discarded medical gear.
“Is this where we were made?” Frankenstein’s monster had it better with his one-on-one visits from his doctor.
Vargr turned to take it in. As he circled, his wings half-opened, fluttered, settled. “Maybe. What a mess.”
Mo waited in the opening to Big Daddy with his front limbs waving a hello. Lights dashed from side to side on his front visor.
“I believe we need Cyn to get Big Daddy to waken,” Mo said. “I sent a message but have received no answer. He will have been powered down for years.”
“And might never awaken,” said Willow from behind.
She and Maura had followed them in. “This is Big Daddy, Mo?”
“Yes, Miss Cyn.”
“Closer,” she croaked and was helped to wobble nearer.
Though no lights had turned on, her eyes adjusted. Big Daddy rested inside a large cubical room. The nose cone almost reached to point where the groove of the sliding door ran. The inner walls were also a liquid blue.
“That’s not a natural rock or a metal, surely?”
Despite her almost inaudible voice, Mo answered.
“The doctor called itbastardium. It is a rare if not unique metal found miles deep at the archaeological dig in New Zealand. The notes in my files state he called it that because it is difficult to transport without it shattering. When shattered, it loses the property he needed it for. That property is why he built this room.”
“And that is?”
“It can shield mankind from the Lure. When the invasion occurred, the dates coincide with a time when he was at that dig.”
Meaning he was shielded then. At first, she’d heard, the Lure wasn’t as broadly applied. As the days passed, it had strengthened.
“Ohhh crap,” Vargr muttered. “We need this so bad.”
“Then why was he overcome? Why did he vanish?” And was that the man she’d killed… for a second time, when she ended the Ghoul Lord? She needed a photo to tell.
Mo remained mute, which seemed to indicate he did not know the answer.
“Open this.” Rutger placed his palm on the black glossy skin of Big Daddy. “And we might find out.”
“Sure. Sure.”
Big Daddy extended far into this room, and his skin ran back into the deeper darkness in segments like a centipede, with multiple legs that were currently retracted upward. Rubber-clad black wheels kept the chassis off the floor, though the rimslooked solid enough to take the vehicle’s weight, minus the tires, if they had to.
She looked up, assessing the black gloss of the skin where it curved over the roof. Thick gold lines and swirls lay on the black, as if a circuit board had been enlarged and welded on.
