“Hey, Jolene,” Cupcake said. “You hear the boss lady? Get cracking.”
“Sugah, I been on that since y’all left that place.”
“Good,” I said. “I’m going to the sleeper cab to rest.” I unbelted, shoved cats out of the way, crawled into the back, lowered the foldup bed, and fell onto the bare mattress, holding the ice against my middle now. I dropped into oblivion.
???
I woke when the cab fell silent, the constant rumble gone. I was on my side, wrapped around the still-cool water bag, sweating. The fever had temporarily broken, but I was weak, aching, and even breathing hurt.
Spy was curled into the crook of my arm, purring. Other cats were behind my knees, against my back, one against my head. I grunted, Spy awoke, and the others came awake too. Shoving cats away, I sat up. There was a tiny comms system, two bottles of electrolyte drink, four aspirin, and an energy bar I recognized as coming from theSunStaron the tiny fold-out table. Seemed Cupcake’s inventory of my scrapyard had included the spaceship. No wonder she and Jolene were cozy.
I drank the drinks, took the aspirin, and ate the bar. It was tasteless, but I needed the calories. When I could stand, I stepped across the cat litter box and used the cab toilet. Everything in the cab stank because of my toxic sweat. There was a tiny portable body wand I could use to clean myself, but it would take a lot of time, and I could hear voices outside. Cupcake. Jagger. Amos. Jacopo. No engines anywhere. I breathed deep despite the pain, palmed the comms system, braced myself, and stepped from the cab, the cats landing all around me.
The first thing I saw was the eight-person donning unit, some sections with armor already in place. In neat rows were the wooden boxes I had seen packed on the flatbed back at the hotel, the wooden boxes from the first container I had opened at Marty’s. Their lids were off. Two of them I remembered, each holding three long rifles capable of multiple-caliber projectiles, all with AI targeting and high-capacity mags. A box of hand weapons was beside it. In organized rows were crates of ammo—the various calibers that would fit the weapons. Last was a case of third-gen blasters, RADR IIIs—pretty, sleek, with armor neural-link capability. They probably had greater range and improved lethality than the one I had killed Marty with.
I walked on around the now-empty rig, trying to figure out where I was. There was a creek in a half-dry riverbed off to the side of the cracked, broken road. It looked a lot like what was left of Big Coal River and Coal River Road, just outside Sylvester, a few klicks from where the log cabin was.
My crew stood under the shade of a tree: Amos, Cupcake, Jacopo, Jagger. They stopped talking and looked me over. They could probably smell me even through the distance that separated us.
The comms system, a tiny thing the size of my pinkie fingernail, vibrated. I tucked it into my ear, and Mateo said, “Afternoon. Cupcake says you’re sick.”
“Yeah. What do you care?”
“You’ll survive. You always have.”
My heart clenched at the callous response. “Update,” I demanded, not crossing the distance to the small group.
“The Simba needs a test run before we go after Evelyn. Cupcake said you intend to close down the armored log cabin and rescue the prisoners. And yeah, Jolene and I’ve been checking it out since you left. Sat-sensors say it’s full of prisoners.”
I said nothing.
“So I got us into place on a low hillock, two klicks from the building, which is another two klicks from your current location.”
“Us?”
“Simba, Jolene, and me.”
“Hey there, sugah. Soon as you’re in your suit, I can monitor your vitals and stick you full of meds to compensate for the transition.”
I grunted softly.
“And the suit’s got a full power load this time, Sweet Thang, so you can make comprehensive use of the complete armor tech and weapons capability.”
Mateo said, “We can do a trial run of our plan to take down Warhammer.”
“And the others?” I asked, staring at the group under the tree, knowing the answer already. “What do they say about it?”
“They’re in.”
All this for Evelyn. All this planning. All these machinations behind my back. I wanted to lash out at Mateo. I wanted to hurt him as badly as he was hurting me. But . . .
I remembered the sight of him the day I rescued him from the small-town sheriff who had enslaved him as his own personal bullyboy and computer. The mess he had been when I got him to the office and out of the warbot suit. The PRC nanos had eaten him, piece by piece.
All I had wanted for years was for Mateo to be his own man, not a thrall to me. I just hadn’t expected him to betray me when that day came. I hadn’t expected it to hurt. Sometimes getting what you want is painful. “What do your sensors say about the armaments?”
“The walls have minimal exterior armor; appear to be standard prewar build of logs and plaz-crete. However, I’m detecting something on the inside, maybe carbon-fiber reinforcement. Windows are reinforced—old-style bullet-resistant glass, not silk-plaz—but will stand up to anything except the Simba’s bigger weapons. Garage doors are reinforced with graphite epoxy trusses and hemp-plaz carbon-fiber composite, possibly scavenged from a black-market Tesla fuselage. One mid-war laser cannon visible from above the left garage door, possibly also from a Tesla.
“I count”—he hesitated—“twelve distinct humans on the second floor. Twenty-seven on the main floor, but one room is heavily packed, and I can’t differentiate exact numbers. Likely a prisoners’ dormitory.
