On screen, the Mammoth vehicle pulled the mini-tank and the first of the trapped lightweight Tac-Vs out of the drive. Within minutes, the next two were out of the drive and the entrance was wide open. One-Eyed Jack and Clarisse were standing just out of direct line of fire from the road, around the curve of the armored cement embankments that protected the office.
Closer in, the cats were feasting on the dead humans.
“The office’s fixed array has antitank missiles,” I said to Jagger, knowing I was giving away way too much. “Gomez. Jagger is in the Com seat. He’s my temporary third in command, authorized for the office’s US Allied defensive measures for the next twelve hours.” That order removed Jagger from command of the other weapons in the office but still gave him control of way more than I wanted him to know about. “I’ll be in the yard itself. Jagger is authorized to monitor my suit sensors. Jagger isnotauthorized for control of or tracking of the warbot or its sensors. Gomez, assess intruders and prepare optional responses for military incursion. Fire upon Jagger’s orders.”
“What about me, Sweetpea?” Jolene asked on a private channel.
“You are reserve forces.”
“Optional responses for military incursion?” Jagger repeated. “What kind of AI and systems do you have in this thing?”
“It’s been heavily retrofitted. If we live through this, I might share,” I lied.
“What are you going to do?” Jagger asked me. “Why will you be in the open?”
“I’m going after Mateo. And I’m going after two intruders at the back of the property, who got in when we weren’t looking.” And I was going to drop the two prisoners who were still hanging under the Grabber. If their brains weren’t totally scrambled, I was going to ask them some pointed and not very nice questions.
“Copy that. Be careful,” Jagger said. “Gomez AI, glad to make your acquaintance.”
“Welcome, Jagger,” Gomez said. “I have prepared four responses, each containing offensive and defensive measures and potential bombardment progressions, all based on the intruders’ armaments we now believe to be in play. We are aware that the intruders may have armaments that differ from our expectations, and therefore, each version has additional options as needed. Please note options one through four on my on-deck screen.”
I could almost feel Jagger’s surprise through the screens and through the cats. No junkyard should have such sophisticated weaponry.
“That AI’s smarter than I thought,” Jolene said into my ear, speaking of Gomez. “Smart issexy.”
Listening with half an ear, I pulled back from theSunStar’s screens and found Tuffs’ face up against mine, cross-eyed close. She was also inside my brain, showing me pictures of Mateo. His warbot suit was quivering very slightly. Two cats were sitting on top of his chest, heads tilting back and forth, ear-tabs flicking, eyes on the suit, as if listening to something inside.
The vision shifted to the Grabber where two people were dangling three meters off the ground. One was singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” The other was crying softly and calling for his mama. Both were signs of prolonged exposure to WIMP AntiGrav tech. It was too late to get anything useful from them.
The vision shifted again, this time to the crack. One person remained on the edge, holding a rope that indicated a lot of tension and movement. The other person was probably down in the crack, checking on the ones Jolene had shot. I needed to stop the invaders, just stop them, not kill them. I needed intel and info. And . . . I needed to protect the office. And theSunStar. And Mateo, whether I trusted him now or not. And I needed to do something about the Puffers. If Mateo had been able to stop them inside his suit, he’d already be back in action.
There was no way I’d be able to do all that.
No matter what I did next, my life as I knew it for the last few years was probably over. If I killed Jagger, I’d have to run again. If I left any Angels alive, I’d have to run again. And if I used my best weapons to stop and kill them, the satellites might register the energies and I’d have to blow up the scrapyard and still have to run again. Which sucked.
My vision shifted. I was seeing my own face, my funky bright reddish-gold irises looking into my own eyes. Tuffs’ eyes. My brain reeled. I closed my eyes and held very, very still to fight off the vertigo, now seeing my closed eyes through the cat’s. Tuffs nose-butted me.
“What?” I asked her.
Mentally, she showed me a water bowl. Showed me a food bowl full of scraps and kibble. Showed me a bowl of goat milk. And a vision of the dead man being fed on by a dozen cats, Rikerd Cotter, number three in the Angels, dead. And a woman farther out, also being eaten. The two dead bodies at the back airlock. And then the dead bodies in the entrance drive. Two cats were feeding on one of them. In the distance, the cats smelled coy-wolves, the feral half-breed species patiently waiting for the humans to leave so they could get to the dead. Or attack the cats. Or both.
Lastly there was a vision of a cat, sitting inside the Mammoth, up on the dash, staring out at the feeding cats and dead humans.
“Is that one of yours?” I asked.
Cat of ours, the concept came back. ‘Cat’was a thought that conveyed a sneaky/savvy/smart fighter, a female warrior cat. The thought ‘ours’contained a series of relationship parameters, successful military maneuvers that resulted in dead rats brought to the pride for protein, and bloodlines that I couldn’t follow, except to gather that the cat was probably Tuffs’ great-great-great granddaughter. And Tuffs was proud of her.
“She got the driver to let her in,” I guessed.
Tuffs made a satisfied sound that was sort of like, “Hhhhah,”
“She knows what they’re saying. What they’re planning.”
“Hhhhah mmm.”
“And . . . without me, you don’t get water and food and goat milk. And we make a good team.”
“Hhhhah mmm.”
