Desperately thirsty from the injury and blood loss, I went to the cooler and took out a bottle of water. Opened it. Drank it empty. Opened another and poured it into a bowl for the cats. They raced over and drank. Standing, I watched Jagger and waited. His color was high.
“What did you do to me?” Jagger asked.
And there it was.
“Nothing.Idid nothing,” I half-lied. Because he was mine now and I had to try to transition his mind away from being enthralled, to remove memories I could no longer allow him to have. I put the empty bottles in the bin.
Jagger sat at the dinette and placed his weapon on the table. A good ten cats leaped on and around the OMW’s national enforcer, tails high. I checked my chrono. I wanted to give Jagger orders, but if I did and he resisted, this would go bad in a hurry.
“I hate cats,” he said, and he might have been speaking to me or to the juvenile cat in his lap, demanding attention with head butting. “They have fleas. They have no sense of loyalty. Damn things don’t even fetch.”
His hand stroked down the demanding cat’s back and curled around his tail in a long swooping swipe. Jagger looked up at me, milk-chocolate-brown eyes alternately angry and slightly befuddled as the dual nanos in my blood took over his body down to the genes. I wanted to say I was sorry. But my blood wasn’t sorry. My blood was programmed to take over the people I met, to create a nest for myself. Just like the genetically altered bicolor ants did.
I pushed aside three cats and sat across from him.
“We don’t have long to stop the invaders. And weneedto stop them. I have defenses I shouldn’t have.”
“No shit. I saw the arrays. And the tech. And the fricking shields. It’s all top-of-the-line military from the end of the war. How’d you get it?”
“It was here when I came. And if the MS Angels get it, they’ll have tech and weapons no one but the military should have access to.”
He kept stroking the cat, silent. I watched him, noting his skin flushing deeper red, his breathing speeding up. His eyes were beginning to look hollowed. He was getting sick. Just like I had. Just like Tuffs had. And somewhat like the Puffers who had tasted my blood had.
“I’m keeping the weapons, ammo, and tech away from the PRC. Away from the Ruskies. And out of the hands of the bad guys.”
“And you’re better than the bad guysss?” His voice began to slur. “I don’t think so.”
“Tuffs,” I said.
The cat left the water bowl and leaped onto the table. She touched my nose.
“Get your spy cat out of the vehicle.” I envisioned that cat leaping from the window and pushed that vision at Tuffs. She tilted her head, breathed out, “Hhhhah,” and showed me her fangs. I hoped that meantyes.
“Gomez,” I said as my Hand-Held chimed a two-minute warning. “Shields. B/B Three arrays. The minute the cat is out of the Mammoth, disable all remaining biological forms. Do not damage the vehicles or the mini-tank. I want that scrap.”
“Disable?” Jagger asked.
I shrugged slightly. “Interesting weapons in the B/B Three array. It stops all biological functions.”
“B/B Three array? Wa’s at?”
I didn’t respond.
“Wait. B/B . . . Thasss Bug tech. No one hasss Bug tech,” Jagger said. His tongue wasn’t working properly. He blinked several times, confused. “No one hasss B/B Three Array,” he insisted. “Thasss Bug weapon.”
I wondered if the Bugs had shot down theSunStar. Or helped the PRC or the Ruskies shoot it down. It made sense if the Bug ship had followed theSunStardown and somehow ended up crashing too. There was an empty Bug exoskeleton in the lower level, jointed legs and droopy antennae and empty eye sockets. I never went down there. It was creepy.
The Bugs would end me if they found out that my office was an actual Bug ship. I had Bug tech, Bug weapons, and the US Space ShipSunStarhere. But the Bugs were another problem for another time. If I lived that long.
“With just the Mammoth sold on the black market, I can pay off my bills.”
Jagger blinked several times, his eyes red and dry. “You can’t acquire or sell military scrap without proper sealsss.”
“Black market doesn’t need Gov. seals.” Mentally, I nudged him. “Think about the MS Angels attack. The Angels are our enemies.”
I pushed harder.
“We need to kill the Angels,” he said, his mouth far too relaxed, his too-bright eyes focusing on the mid-distance. His color was a bloated bright red and there was a white ring around his mouth where the circulation was altering. His fever was high and he wasn’t sweating. My funky nanobots were taking over his system. The med-bay couldn’t help him anymore, not with this.
