“Get the women out,” I said.
“Covering the back of the house as the prisoners are exfil’ed,” Jacopo said. “Will target and take out anything else that moves.”
“Got it, Marconi,” Amos said. “Let’s go, ladies.”
I walked to the front room and looked out the busted window. Discovered that all the men outside were dead except for one. Cupcake strode to him and shot him in the head. Cupcake was scary.
I moved through the house and out the back. I swiveled and studied the house. Far as I could tell, there was no damage to the log wall. Jacopo hadn’t missed. He was scary too.
Darson was lying on his side, moaning. I walked to him and kicked him flat. I relaxed the suit hardening and squatted beside him. Shoved up my face shield and gave him my scariest smile. “Hey. I need info. Your only chance to live is to tell me everything.” He rolled his head side to side, moaning. I thought about the women in the campground. The women here. I pulled off a glove and held my hand above his neck. Warhammer’s nanobots were all through him. I could feel the vibrations of the nanos in his flesh, in his blood, just as I had felt Marty’s contagion.
I regloved and said, casually, “You were going to take out the head of the MS Angels for her, weren’t you? And then Marconi. Talk to me or die.”
He groaned and shook his head no.
“That was your one and only chance. You won’t die easy,” I said.
I stood and looked at the others. “Toss him into the truck bed. Jacopo. Tell your father that he just inherited a house. It’s a little beat up, but it can be reno’ed.”
Jagger looked as if he was going to argue for OMW territory, so I added, “Tell him it’s a gift from the OMW.” Jagger started laughing.
“Thank you, Ms. Smith. I’m sure my father will be appropriately appreciative.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I’d take the win. “Let’s get the women treated and dressed. Make sure they have money and trade goods and a way out of here.” I checked the time and was shocked to see that the battle had lasted a total of fourteen minutes. Seemed like forever.
???
Jagger and Amos made the trip to the scrapyard on bikes liberated from the log cabin. Jacopo, blindfolded and loosely bound, sat in Amos’s dirty recliner. Cupcake drove and didn’t sing, thankfully. I was feverish, sick, sleeping on the foldout bed with the cats, the odor of the litterbox not helping my nausea. My fever was high enough that Cupcake kept stopping the rig and changing out my ice bags with fresh ice she had taken from the log cabin. Wasting water on me. I got a case of giggles thinking about that, but I had no idea why it was funny. Delirious maybe.
We got to the junkyard in the middle of the night, and found the other rigs parked out front, drivers asleep inside each, the hired armed guards sitting in strategic places. Mateo’s security measures had kept the drivers and hired guns out. Our secrets were still secure. The cats raced from the cab and disappeared, probably to share their experiences with the others. I sat on the ground at the entrance and leaned against the pillar that hid weaponry. I was shaking so hard I thought I might rattle my brains. My temp was really high. I needed the med-bay, but I had things to take care of.
Cupcake displaced the guards and the drivers, tossed Enrico to the ground from where he had been sleeping in one of the cabs, then drove each of the rigs into the scrapyard and deposited the containers at the back near theSunStar. The empty rigs drove off, leaving Jagger, Cupcake, Amos, Enrico (still trussed up like a turkey), Jacopo (who was now allowed to see what little there was to see in the dark), Darson, and me. I noted that the sign advertising the scrapyard was down. Mateo, thinking ahead, had removed it.
Cupcake gave Jacopo a pair of gloves and made sure he put them on securely. “Daddy wanted you to see the med-bay,” she said. “Come on.” They walked into the dark.
Jagger unloaded two more matte-black motorbikes from my rig. I hadn’t noted him taking them at the log cabin. Smart man. Cupcake reappeared soon after, took Jacopo’s gloves, and poured some precious water into a basin. She dropped in the gloves. “Step in,” she directed him. He did. “Stomp around some,” she added. He looked incredulous but followed the order.
Smart woman. Killing my nanobots.
“Get on the bike,” she ordered. “You’ll leave when Jagger does.” Jacopo shrugged a lot like his father had and straddled the bike. He clearly thought we were all deranged.
Jagger and Jacopo waited outside the gates, Jagger keeping his charge safe from my nanobots. Cupcake grabbed Darson’s collar and dragged him into the night. The screams started instantly, but before he cut comms, I heard Mateo say, “You don’t need that thumb. Tell me where Warhammer is.” He’d find where the other queen was. Where Evelyn was. I felt no pity at all.
Cupcake walked back to the entrance, her skirt swishing. She had changed into a frilly dress, which was weird.
“I want in,” Amos said, before I could even start talking. “You need a guy like me. I like cats. I like junk. I like fighting. And I like Cupcake.”
I felt Cupcake flush. Bloody hell. She liked Amos. As inliked. “Walk with us,” I said. I held up my hand and Cupcake pulled me to my feet. We three walked away from Jagger and Jacopo. I said, “This isn’t a short-term job, Amos. I’m sick. Think of it like a type of plague. You stay, youwillget sick. When you get well, you will never want to leave. You willnever leave,” I emphasized. “Smith’s Junk and Scrap is in the middle of nowhere, in the West Virginia desert. Closest town is Naoma, which is where you’ll have to bunk until I heal Enrico.”
“Will I infect other people?”
“No.”
He pursed his mouth and moved his jaw side to side, as if thinking. “Fine. Long as I can’t infect people. I packed all my gear and turned in the keys on my rental. I’m staying.”
“We’re going to war soon, and you don’t even know why. This isn’t your fight.”
He waved a hand in the air as if flapping away something stinky. “I’m good with all that shit on one condition. If Cupcake would consider having dinner with me tonight.”
