“Little Mama wasn’t Southern,” I said to Jolene.
I tossed my armor behind my seat, found a pair of old pants and work gloves stuffed in a side pocket, dressed, and belted back in. The pants smelled like grease, but what the heck.
“Shame about that. You’d be a lot nicer to deal with if you had been taught to act like a lady.”
I burst out laughing, thinking about a lady wearing spike heels and a dainty dress climbing into a Mama-Bot, alone, carrying nothing but a blaster and a tiny nuke to save the world. Yeah. Most ladies had died in the first hours of the war. Those humans who had survived had different skill sets from reading literature, writing poetry, drinking champagne while doing yoga, and ordering around servants. Or whatever ladies did.
The cats were bored and bounded around the cab, finding comfy places to snooze away what was left of the night. Spy jumped into my lap. I waited for her to claw me, but she turned around twice and curled into a ball of purring sweetness. “Faker,” I accused her.
We clattered over the bridge. Moments later the hotel came into view. Jagger’s people opened the heavy gate to the overflow parking, and Cupcake wheeled the rig and trailer into its spot, which was a lot tighter now that there were all the extra containers taking up space. Jagger and Amos and the two OMW guards went to work setting up the second Antigravity Grabber.
I carried my suit to the grabber, removed the weapons, tossed the armor under the flat surface, checked the AG energy levels, and engaged it. I stripped off the stinky dungarees and gloves and tossed them in too before dressing quickly in the clothes I had discarded forever ago.
My new armor rose into the air and quivered as the energies began to murder the PRC nanobots and my own. Antigravity killed them all. As to the new nanobots insideme, well, that should be interesting. Hopefully, I’d be back home to my own pre-set med-bay before they reached critical numbers.
Jagger tossed his suit under the grabber’s energies and it rose with mine. Amos and Cupcake were nowhere to be seen. “It’s dawn,” Jagger said, sticking his fingers into his jeans pockets, thumbs outside. “You want sleep? Or you up for something more entertaining?”
I turned my eyes to his face. He was staring at the armor, his eyes sleepy-looking, but his mouth . . .Bloody damn.That mouth. Almost smiling. Relaxed. My belly turned into a pool of molten need. “You know that touching me makes it worse.”
He chuckled. “And not touching you is torture.”
“I don’t want a slave.”
“I’m already there, Little Girl. Too little, too late.”
I closed my eyes. Hating this. “I need to get the containers back to the scrapyard. There were two women held prisoner at a well-fortified log cabin on the way here. I have a bad feeling they weren’t alone, maybe like the people at the campground. I’m going to rescue them and anyone else trapped there. You want to help, get the earthmovers and pumps to Marconi. Hire us rigs to haul the containers. Get us some paid guns. We need to be out of here by midafternoon to get back to the log cabin before dark.”
“I’m going with.”
“Fine. You can sleep on the way. I got an itchy feeling I need to be back at the med-bay.” He looked the question at me. “I’m not feeling so good. The infection is starting sooner than expected.”
Jagger cursed and walked away. To do my bidding. Tears pricked my eyes, but I didn’t have time for them.
Cupcake and I took care of the gear and secured the decontaminated suits in the shipping container they came in. Exhausted, we trudged to our rooms, showered, and fell into bed.
I woke at 1:00 p.m., alone in the room, shivering and feverish. Cupcake, her stuff, and the cats were gone. She had laid out my clothes, which she had never done at the scrapyard. I initiated my nearly antique Morphon to find two messages. Mateo had managed to get the Simba to the scrapyard. He had already begun additional decontamination and an electronics sweep, and was running diagnostics on the WIMP engine and the EntNu uplink. Jolene was adding upgrades and connecting the command modules to her systems as backup. And Cupcake was ready to roll. I turned off the Morphon. I doubted anyone could track me on such an old system, but that wasn’t a chance I was willing to take.
After a cool shower, sunscreen, and a handful of aspirin, I tossed the sheets, towels, and anything that fit into the tub and filled it with water to kill my nanos. I dressed in the jeans, boots, and two layers of shirts that Cupcake had chosen. Black gloves. Sunglasses, which I especially needed because the transition headache was starting and it was bright outside.
I repacked, hung the Do Not Disturb card on the knob, and left, but paid for four more days, so any remaining nanos would be dead when the room was cleaned. Spy met me in registration and walked me out, tail high, leading the way to the secure parking area where everything was different. There were five rigs now, four hauling the new containers, men and women milling around, all armed. My old rust-bucket was loaded with wooden boxes I recognized from Marty’s, and covered with my old cheap scrap.
Jacopo Marconi was standing beside Jagger, a duffel at his feet, and his brother Enrico was trussed up, gagged, blindfolded, and sitting on the cracked asphalt. The cats were hiding under my rig in the shade. Cupcake was giving directions and instructions to the drivers and hired guns. I wasn’t needed, so I walked to Enrico and placed my palms on his face. I pushed with my blood, with my nanobots, beginning the transition that would make him mine. Or kill him. By the time we got back to the scrapyard, he would be ready for the med-bay.
When I stood, I spotted Jagger. He was weaponed up like a space cowboy, wearing yesterday’s clothes, hadn’t shaved, had sweat rings under his arms and down his back, andbloody hell, he looked good. The moment I thought that, he looked up and met my eyes, holding my gaze. There was a lot of heat in that stare for a moment, and then he blinked, and it was gone. That was good, right? It had to be good that he could shut it down. He said, “Deputy Darson was gone. Marconi has people looking for him.”
“Okay. Will he keep us informed?”
“He’ll tell his kid.” He inclined his head to Jacopo and said to him, “You ride with Amos in a rig. Part way there you’ll be blindfolded. Your brother rides with me in another rig. Bikes are loaded for later travel.” Louder, to the drivers and guards, he said, “Let’s roll!”
In seconds we were ready to go, and five rigs rumbled to life. I climbed painfully into my cab, ignoring the cats who jumped in through the open door. Belting myself in, I stretched out my legs, my joints aching, and propped them on the dash. Shifting like the pro she was, Cupcake maneuvered out of the lot, leading the way for the convoy.
She passed me an electrolyte drink, which was slimy and nasty, but I drank it down as we pulled out of Charleston and left behind the last bit of green and civilization I’d see for a while. Of course, civilization had included a sex-slave camp, so maybe not so civilized.
As the last of the farms disappeared, Cupcake glanced at me side-eyed and said, “I know you’re dying and all, but we’re still going to clean out the sex-ring log cabin and kick some butt on the way home, right?”
I shivered, my teeth clattering, knowing it was the fever rising, and while I wanted to be under a blanket, that would only make matters worse. Cupcake passed me a bag of ice and said, “Hold it behind your neck. And answer my question.”
I was sure I hadn’t told Cupcake about my fears for the women there. Had the cats told her? Were they talking to her too, mind-to-mind? That was terrifying, but I was too sick to address that possibility. “Sure. We’ll kick some ass. Bonus points if there’s an e-trail showing a tie to the military, Deputy Darson, the MS Angels, the Law, or the Gov. If it is a sex shop, that’s too coincidental for there not to be a link.”
