“We’re good,” Axel said. “Coming out.”
“Don’t come back here,” I said. “Everyone run back toward the alley where we were before. The smoke spot. They’re gonna blow up the mechs.”
“Hey, I can hear you talking,” came a voice. It was Skeet. His entire mech was wrecked. I remembered what had happened last time. We had to get the hoppers out of here and fast. One of those Moderators was going to come and blow all these mechs up.
“Hey, Roger,” I whispered, “do you know what Skeet’s real name is?”
“It is Jeffrey Pyle,” Roger said in my ear. “He lives at 4514 Willow Thicket Street in a town called Minneapolis in the New Republic. District 22. His mother was a schoolteacher, but she retired to live off of his streaming income.”
“Jesus, Roger,” I muttered, “how do you know all of this?”
“There was an article about his team on NPR three months ago. It was not difficult to find. The perimeter-defense program comes with a war strategies subroutine, and I just updated my protocols using widely available literature on modern warfare tactics, including a very interesting essay on psychological warfare against remote combatants.”
Before I could say anything, Sam was there standing over the cracked-egg shape. “Hey, Jeffy, you in there?”
There was a group of four black pinpricks circling a protuberance on the egg. Cameras. They looked like spider eyes.
Behind us, the hoppers roared to life. We had to get out of the way. They would smash through this mech as soon as we moved.
“We have two minutes to evacuate the area,” Roger said. “We have loaded all we can. Please proceed to one of the hoppers, and we will pick up the other four on the way.”
“I’m going to come back here with a Heavy, find you, and tear you apart, you piece-of-shit terrorist,” Skeet growled over the band.
“Oh, yeah?” Sam asked. He still stood over the wrecked mech, looking down at it. He dropped his rifle, pulled his pants down, and pulled out his junk. He proceeded to urinate directly onto the electric eyes. “The Rhythm Mafia will be waiting for you, prick.”
The Rhythm Mafia Tapes. Scene ten.
A smiling woman chases after a pair of young twin girls. The woman is Annabeth Capstone, twenty-seven. She is second cousin to Rosita. The young toddlers are Mia and Tabitha Capstone, and they are one and a half years old. They are both in matching pink ballerina outfits. The twins were part of a pilot program to test the safety of offspring from the altered generation due to the . At the time of filming, records indicated there were fewer than fifty minors on all of New Sonora. All were this approximate age.
Please note, Rosita refers to Mia and Tabitha as her nieces. They are, in truth, her second cousins once removed.
They are at a small outside café in the town of Burnt Ends. Behind Annabeth is the husk of a colony drop ship repurposed to house a café. Both ends of the drop ship are scorched, indicating a difficult entry through New Sonoran atmosphere. Historical records indicate that of the five drop ships sent to the southern peninsula, only three survived the entry due to a human programming error that miscalculated the entry trajectory. The failed entry was the fault of Captain Ignacio DiSantos, who claimed he no longer trusted the Traducible AI system of theHibiscoand insisted all calculations be made by humans. After the failed entry, it should be noted that Captain DiSantos perished by suicide after manually replacing the oxygen in his cabin with helium.
The town of Burnt Ends was named after the entry vehicle that you see in the background.
Rosita (off camera TO THE TWINS):Can you say “Rosita”? Can you say “Aunt Rosita”?
Mia:(unintelligible)
Both Annabeth and Rosita cheer and clap.
Rosita:My nieces are the smartest. They’re the smartest of them all.
Mia and Tabitha both giggle hysterically.
(A time cut.)
Annabeth is sitting with both toddlers on her lap. A cartoon is being projected by her bracelet, and both children are watching it.
Annabeth:I wasn’t sure what I was expecting. Great-Aunt Paula doesn’t know anything about kids. So I’m just taking it one day at a time. We have books and movies, but they don’t really show what it’s like. All the nosy old ladies want to help, and I appreciate it when I need it, but that can be just as overwhelming as the kids.
Rosita:What about your husband?
Annabeth snorts.
Annabeth:Troy is gone six months out of the year on the railway repair crew. And when he is home, he doesn’t know what the hell to do. I’ve never seen a grown man more terrified of something so small than Troy is of his daughters when they need a diaper change.
Rosita:Wereyouscared when you were made pregnant? I mean, were you worried about the Sickness?
