“I got a message today. I figure it means that Clarisse is coming for the goodies buried in the scrapyard.”
The warbot didn’t react. Mateo’s hairless, scarred, misshaped head didn’t move, but the scars around his mouth pulled, as if he knew the next bit would be bad. “You’re not finished. Report,” he snapped out, sounding like the Commanding Officer he had once been.
Gently, I said, “Evelyn’s finger came in the mail. It was removed from her living body four days ago. No note. No return address.”
Mateo stared at me. A juvenile pride cat bounded to his carapace, found no traction, and slid down the silk-plaz viewport, legs and claws scrabbling for purchase, falling. Mateo grabbed him out of the air, placing him on the dirt. The cat shook off the fall, his body language saying he meant to do that. Gathering his dignity, he sauntered into the darkness.
Mateo still said nothing, and I wondered how much of the situation he was processing. My friend—I guess he was still my friend?—had fairly significant brain damage from a nanobot attack, but I’d been trading for new Berger chip plug-ins to fill his brain with info, and they were helping him heal and process things.
According to my timeline, Clarisse Warhammer had learned, through Evelyn, about theSunStarat some point in the last six months. That had led the queen to Smith’s Junk and Scrap, to Harlan, to the mine crack, and to the stern of theSunStarhalf buried at the back of the junkyard. Because we weren’t expecting an attack, we hadn’t been prepared. Mateo and I—and our unwanted visitor at the time, Jagger—had mounted the best defense we could when she attacked. That best defense meant that Warhammer had a good idea that there was Bug-alien tech and weapons in the office. And now, clearly, she had figured out who I was.
Mateo stared at me, unblinking, his face like a brick wall, showing no emotion. The cats got bored, and all but one sauntered away. As dawn began to gray the sky, Mateo said, “She wants the part ofSunStarEvelyn told her about. Warhammer won’t be informing the Law or the MS Angels. She thinks you’re human, and she doesn’t know about me, because Evelyn thinks I’m dead. She thinks you’re weak and stupid, and she’s taunting you, hoping you’ll run scared if she gives you a warning. She thinks the Bug-tech is something we got on the black market, something small and localized. She doesn’t know your office is a high-tech Bug ship. She thinks you got lucky last time and can be defeated. This time she’ll bring more weapons. More men. How fast can she transition humans and create a nest?”
“I agree. And I don’t know. I never tried more than one at a time, and I needed a med-bay for that. She may transition them without a med-bay and hope for the best, which would give her a faster turnaround time.” My two successes were Cupcake and Jagger. Neither one of whom I had wanted as a thrall. I still wasn’t sure if Mateo was a success or a failure.
Overhead, the last of the night’s stars winked out as my friend raised to his full height and loomed over me. He wasn’t going to hurt me, but my body tensed anyway, ancient fight-or-flight instincts trying to kick in.
Mateo was as close to cyborg as it was possible for a human to be. He was more machine than man, now, but he still thought and grieved at human speeds. The parts of his face that still worked twisted in anguish; his jaw and mouth tightened. He focused on me in the dim light. “We need the Simba,” he said at last.
A Simba was a huge heavy battle tank built at the end of the war. It had weapons that could take out precision targets at five kilometers using aerial targeting systems; had lasers and jamming devices to bring down remote aircraft; had rail guns, blasters that could take down a platoon of warbot-suited warriors; had all the bells and whistles of a combat professional’s dreams. It could be AI-directed, remote robo-guided, or warbot-suit operated, and some were built for multiple manning methods. Mateo was a warbot suit manned with a living breathing human, the best option of them all. Rumor had it this Simba was also mounted with a city-killer. With it, we could take out Warhammer, even if she was in an underground bunker.
“Can you leave for Charleston now?” he asked.
“Eight sharp,” I said, “if you already got the AI-uplink prepared and the weapons affixed to the diesel.”
“Jolene’s comm unit is ready to go,” Mateo said. “The EntNu uplink will go directly through to her.”
Jolene had started out as a standard AI on the USSSSunStarhalf buried out back. Thanks to contamination by my nanobots, she had gained sentience and self-determination. She was now a Southern belle with attitude.
“Weapons mounted on the truck two days ago,” he continued. “Its scanners are crap compared to the office’s or my own, but are operational and integrated with the auto-targeting firing of the Para Gen. Did maintenance on armor and windows, but to fire reliably you’ll need to be outside, meaning you have offense or defense options, not a combo. I installed eight mini-cams to keep track of the flatbed’s contents, the cab, and the undercarriage. AC’s running, but it won’t last. Your trade gear’s loaded.”
“I’ll get our personal gear and meet you out front.”
“Roger that.” Mateo moved silently into the gray of near dawn.
Cupcake and I were going on a road trip to dig up and steal a Simba. For that to happen we had to beg, borrow, or steal an earthmover. And we couldn’t let anyone know. Yeah. Secrets.
We had known this day was coming for a while, and Mateo and Cupcake had come up with two different plans to rescue the Simba. They were full of holes so big you could guide a spaceship through them.
My version covered the details and utilized Jagger, a made-man with the Outlaw Militia Warriors. He had survived the Battle of Mobile. Three Simbas had been involved in the salvation of Mobile. So he might even have experience remote-driving one of the behemoths, should Mateo be needed elsewhere, like fighting in his warbot suit. Jagger knew weapons, and the OMW had contacts with the military. I’d contact Jagger once I got to Charleston. And I would be very careful not to touch him. Verybloodycareful.
To get the Simba, I might need the cats’ cooperation, which I had yet to obtain, but thanks to Warhammer’s visit, the two prides had discovered a delight in war games and a taste for human flesh. Unless I was very mistaken, Tuffs—the Guardian Cat—would get a lot of pressure to send a cat crew to war with us.
???
By 7:40 a.m., the last of the valuables were fully secured on the flatbed of the diesel truck. All that was left was the camouflage junk. Gyro-balanced on armored legs, Mateo’s warbot stepped over piles of scrap, carrying a couple hundred kilos of low-grade steel and pitted aluminum in his three servo-powered arms.
Banging everything around like a kid with old pots and pans, he positioned and secured the cheap scrap over the good stuff I was taking to trade, which included some high-grade steel, several hundred pounds of copper, and several dozen sterling-silver trays.
Cupcake had found the sterling in the same storage shed where she discovered the silver utensils, the dinnerware, and a box of gold-and-gem jewelry that she said was the real deal. The blackened trays had been plastic-wrapped, stacked five trays deep and three meters tall, in a shed I had never inventoried, and she had offered them up to us this morning, when Mateo told her we were implementing our plan early. Finding the silver and jewelry meant that Cupcake had earned her water usage several times over. Instead of stealing, I could trade for a working backhoe or dozer to dig out the Simba, if I could find a shady owner who would keep his mouth shut. And maybe I could outright buy a portable WIMP antigravity grabber to power up the Simba.
Mateo had fastened and strapped the scrap in the bottom of the ancient flatbed, lashing it all down with flex before he positioned the truck bed’s armored walls. The banging had brought cats from everywhere; dozens perched, watching from every vantage point. Tuffs was with them. By her body language—turned away—she was not happy with me. Walking flat-footed so I didn’t step on a random kitten, I gently shoved cats out of the way and tossed my satchels into the niche built into the truck bed. Cupcake did the same with her gear, then jumped over the short truck-bed wall and arranged our personal bags so they were easy to get to and wouldn’t bounce out when we hit potholes. Though still tentative, in the last two hours Cupcake had revealed a different side of herself as she helped to load for the trip, offering suggestions for trade items and chattering to Mateo. She had crazy-mad organizational skills.
As the other two worked, I climbed in the cab and checked the weapons. Mateo had long ago armored the diesel and affixed supports for weapons that could be rotated down for use and back into hidden compartments as needed. Only a fool traveled without protection, because there would surely be trouble. It was better to be prepared for everything than wake up dead.
Roadblocks created by local redneck thieves were not unknown. Assaults and disappearances were common. If the biker gang calling itself the MS Angels was moving east and taking territory, as rumors indicated, they would eventually hit Charleston, and the MSA were known to cover all their bases—meaning every road in and out. On the truck and on my person I was carrying multiple weapons of different calibers and energy usages, up close and distance weapons, as well as scanning and diagnostic gear. That stuff took up a lot of room, and in the cab, close at hand, was the only place I wanted it.
Spy, the many-times-great-granddaughter of the junkyard cats’ queen, wandered all over the cab as I worked, sticking her nose into everything, getting in my way, and generally being a cat-pest. Shemrooowedrepeatedly, and I finally said, “The Guardian Cat said you can’t go with me, so take up your argument with her. I’m not the cat-queen.”
