But not now.

  The fact that the kid had listened surprised him. He didn’t want to hurt the boy, but he was going to if the kid hadn’t agreed to go steal a desert runner so he could take Miles to Seraph. But knocking the kid over the head and making it out were long odds. At least the kid might get them past the bots and the other gang members.

  They made their way through the scrap piles, which were the grist of a new drone army the host was building. Could Hill possibly be the only person working on the project? There was too much Miles didn’t know. Add it to the list. And the thought of the girl naively slaving for the host in service of his evil designs set his teeth on edge.

  A few of the Metal Heads had bedded down around the rocks near the cavern exit. It was only a fraction of the gang. Either they had another hideout, or they were out working.

  The closest horse chuffed as Miles and the kid approached. One of the sleeping figures rolled onto their back and adjusted a lumpy

  foam pad which served as their pillow, only to settle in again.

  A machine on the opposite side of the chamber began to hum and whirr, a compressor perhaps, but it shut off just as quickly with a soft sigh. Miles hoped the sleeping men were used to noises.

  The kid opened the door to one of the desert runners. The four seats were cramped and could be folded down flat. He hit a switch on the back, which powered the vehicle up.

  Miles’ attention was divided between him and the slumbering bandits. None of them stirred as the young outlaw got behind the wheel and started the engine. It purred. The kid made an impatient gesture as Miles hesitated. If his assist with the escape was a ruse meant to test Miles’ loyalty, he was about to find out. He climbed into the passenger seat.

  The kid didn’t wait for seatbelts. After putting the car into drive, he rested his right hand on the gear shift, an easy reach to the burner in his shoulder holster.

  The crunch of tires was much louder than the electric engine as the desert runner crawled forward and up the curved driveway.

  Shadows of the surrounding rock formations stood around them, and with the lights out, the bumpy road was almost invisible. The kid was managing as they passed across rolling ground while staying on the track.

  “We make it to the service road, then you’ll see how good I can drive,” the kid said.

  A light flashed in their faces. A sentry, maybe more than one, impossible to tell. Miles squinted as the kid hit the brakes. A figure walked towards them as a companion kept the light and perhaps a weapon trained on them.

  “Kid, what are you doing?” the sentry asked.

  “Taking him to Seraph as ordered.”

  “What orders? He’s leaving in the morning.”

  “Well, there’s new orders. You’re not on the same ladder rung as me anymore, Chang.”

  “We didn’t hear anything about that.” Chang stooped to get a better look at Miles. Miles smiled at him. Confirmed Chang carried a weapon. “Stay put. I’m going to check with Trevor.”

  “He’ll tell you the same thing. We’re going to be late.”

  “That’s not my problem. In fact, turn this thing around and go back inside, and we’ll clear this up together. Because I don’t like it.”

  “Hey, Chang,” Miles called. “We haven’t met yet. The host told me about you. Said I could learn a lot from you and the others. Will I be working with you when I set up shop in Seraph? Because he said you were an expert.”

  “Did he?”

  “Yes. In fact, we’ll have to talk soon. But for right now, we’re heading out early like the kid says.”

  Chang moved a split second before Miles did, but Miles’ hand was faster. He pulled the burner from the kid’s holster and snapped off two shots. Chang howled and fell and didn’t get up.

  The kid screamed and grabbed for the weapon, but Miles used it to pop him in the nose while pressing the kid’s leg down onto the accelerator. The second bandit holding the light jumped aside as they sped past.

  They hit a hard bump, sending both Miles and the kid slamming into the runner’s ceiling before plonking back into their seats. The kid’s face was bleeding.

  A pop exploded behind Miles’ head as a burner hole appeared in the plexiglass in the rear of the cab. Miles took the wheel and yanked it in time to avoid a rock. The kid twisted his foot off the pedal as he tried to wrangle the burner out of Miles’ hands, but Miles was stronger. He got the barrel pointed into the kid’s face. Instead of shooting, he reached over and opened the door and shoved. The kid went tumbling as Miles climbed over the shifter and into the driver’s seat. Gunned it.

  As the desert runner barreled forward, Miles fumbled for the headlights and steered wildly as he was heading straight for an embankment. He bounced over a rut and onto a road, full speed into the night.

  Chapter Seventeen

  hey were coming. Had to be.

  Miles didn’t see any light behind him, but knew it would only T

  take minutes for the gang to start their pursuit. He kept his one eye glued to the road, scanning for any turns or obstacles and searching for any sign which would indicate what direction he was heading.

  The bandits would chase him using the other desert runners, and might also call ahead to any others who might be able to head him off. Of greater worry were the spider bots. How fast could an unburdened spider scamper across the desert? Insight surely knew, but Insight remained offline.

  The glow of the Place Where We Sang the Night Hymnal lay dead ahead. Someone had the lights back on.

  So the Metal Head hideout was close, a short walk away. With the dark shape of Confidence Hill in the distance, Miles was able to orient himself. The train tracks lay beyond. Not far if he could avoid bottoming out the desert runner and stranding himself.

  He cut across a stretch of hardpan, hitting a few treacherous bumps and rocks which jarred the vehicle. He kept his jaw tight to avoid biting his tongue. But as he turned onto the trail which he and the marshal had followed, he knew he would make it back to the train.

  Someone in the road.

  He swerved hard, almost clipping them, before hitting the brakes and pulling the runner into a sharp skid. A cloud of dust rose around him as he stepped out of the vehicle.

  “Dawn? What are you doing out here?”

  The train attorney held her arm across her nose and mouth.

  “Looking for you and the marshal.” She held up his black jacket. “I was worried.”

  “There’s no time to explain. Get in.”

  She climbed into the passenger seat. Miles was about to put it in gear when she put a hand on his.

  “Wait,” she said. “Where’s the marshal?”

  “Taken by the bots. There’s a bunch on my trail right now along with the Metal Heads.”

  He started driving. He kept scanning the road carefully.

  “Then where are you going?” she asked.

  “Back to the train. Get you someplace safe, check on the passengers.”

  “If they’re chasing you, you’re going to lead them back there.”

  He kept his foot down, going as fast as he dared. “Don’t you think I know that? I don’t have a better plan. Those things are going to kill everyone. We need to be ready.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I talked to their boss. He’s crazy. He thinks this stretch of desert is his, and he’s trying to make a cyborg utopia. Why aren’t you with the passengers? I thought you might be with the party heading north to check on the other waystation.”

  “That was a fiasco. We made it to a junction house two kilometers away, then Mrs. Fish’s resolve broke when we found the fiber optic lines were cut. So we headed back. I got a whiff of a signal a few times but it faded before we could call for help. And then you and Marshal Barma didn’t return, so I went out to find you.”

  Miles kept his attention on the road. “We were attacked and escaped through a mine.”

  “You should have stayed put. Slow down; you’re going to take us into a ravine. Now who’s after us?”

  “Calls himself the host. He’s got a miner settlement under his control and the Metal Heads running it. They’ve got more spider drones, and tough ones. But like the chief engineer, the marshal wasn’t killed. He was kidnapped.”

  Dawn kept glancing at the desert runner’s instrument panel. “That doesn’t make much sense. But we’ve got a vehicle and a full charge.

  We could make any of the substations or even Seraph. There’s no point in us going back to the train if we’re just hoping for rescue before the gang swoops down on us again.”

  “And what about the marshal and everyone else?”

  “We’ll help them by calling for reinforcements. What’s wrong with your eye?”

  “It got zapped.”

  “Then let me drive,” Dawn said.

  They’d go faster if she did. But swapping drivers meant stopping.

  And why was Dawn so fixated on him? Something about her wandering the night in search of them—him, he was certain—was like having something stuck between his teeth that he couldn’t dislodge.

  The road made a turn ahead of them as it climbed the hill. He coasted into a stop and set the brake. They got out. As they moved to switch positions, Dawn pulled him down in front of the runner. She had a small pistol in her hand, which he hadn’t seen before. A slug thrower.

  “Three targets,” she said. “Flanking us.”

  He couldn’t see anything but didn’t want to stick his head out for a better look. He readied his burner. In the darkness around them came the soft tap-tap-tap of metal feet on the sandy soil. The sound approached from both sides of the vehicle.

  “You know how to use that weapon?” he whispered.

  “Spent some time at the range.”

  “Then make your shots count.”

  Miles leaned out, leading with his burner, but didn’t have a shot.

  The rocks around the side of the road might have all been spider bots. He shifted from target to target, unaccustomed to sighting using his real eye. Motion. He pivoted and fired but ducked as a red light flashed.

  Dawn had crawled forward on the opposite side of the runner.

  Her weapon cracked twice. A spider lurched forward, but it was twitching. It pitched forward, legs propellering and spiked feet slashing the air. Miles scrambled to join her, saw a second shape scurrying up the road behind them, and snapped off a series of blasts. The bot wavered, and he shot it three more times until it went down. But a third drone appeared past the driver’s side of the desert runner. Before he could move, Dawn stood, fired twice, and brought it down.

  He was catching his breath as she swept the night with her pistol.

  “Clear,” she said.

  “Are you sure?”

  She delivered a coup de grâce to the bot before her and, with a final spasm, it lay still. Keeping low, Miles went to the other two and confirmed they were down, at least until some Metal Head collected them for recycling.

  Dawn moved to the driver-side door. “Get in!”

  But something about the third bot caught his attention. Its eye stalk bore a few newer parts which weren’t made from the black steel or hadn’t been painted. This was the one Hill had been working on. The hideout had three of the drones. All three were here now, disabled. And while the bots could see at night, he guessed not many of the gang could. There were no headlights in the desert.

  They had a few minutes, at least.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  He climbed into the passenger seat. “Just a little math. Three bots in the hideout, three here. We might have bought ourselves some time, but it means the host is using the bots for something else.”

  He checked his burner before putting it aside next to the shifter.

  Two shots left. “You seem resourceful. Any chance you can fix my eye?”

  She got the runner in gear and sped forward. “Maybe. Some light, some tools, and with no one shooting at us.”

  They drove up a few switchbacks to an intersection of trails marked by a white post. She slowed and then made a turn.

  “Pretty good work with that pistol,” Miles said.

  Dawn dabbed sweat from her brow. “Thanks. Amazing what you can do when motivated.”

  “Hmm. 84 series? Post war, not many off the assembly matrix.

  Plus, you don’t look that old. Not a mark on your skin. Classy stuff.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Your modifications. 84 series. Or is there something newer than that in your skull?”

  “I’m not a cyborg.”

  “Bull. Snap targeting. You hit those power plants dead on to knock them out like that. And I don’t buy you happened to find that dead Metal Head and just happened to track me and the marshal out here by luck. It’s night, it’s dark, and you’ve got some kind of boosted night vision or infrared or both. Post-war Meridian tech can afford to make things look pretty. No glowing red eye. Just the goods, and no one’s the wiser.”

  “I said I’m not—”

  “Save it. My hearing in my augmented ear has never synched right with my brain, but with everything being as quiet as it is, I can hear the tiny noises when your eye focuses. Impossible to miss. So Herron-Cauley has a top-of-the-line combat model.”

  Dawn rolled her eyes. “Not combat. Just a few upgrades. Eyes.

  Computer interface module. Medulla governor, which helps with a steady hand.”

  “They don’t do those anymore.”

  She smiled but her gaze remained hard and fixed on the road ahead. “How about you sit quietly? You’ve no doubt been through an ordeal. I’ll get us to safety.”

  “This isn’t the way to the train. Where are you going?”

  “Seraph. It’s what you wanted, isn’t it? The passengers will be rescued by morning. The gang, the bots, they wouldn’t attack the train. There’s no point. This host you mentioned has you spooked.”

  “He believed it and was clear about what he was going to do,” he said. “You can’t just drive us away without us warning everyone.”

  She didn’t answer.

  He grabbed for the burner between the seats, but she was faster, snatching the weapon and aiming it at Miles’ midsection. His left hand was his slow hand. Her right hand was wicked fast, steady, and he had no doubt she could put a hole in him before he could blink, if she wanted.

  He said, “You’ve got two shots. Better make them count.”

  “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead. Now shut up.”

  “You were packing your own weapon this whole time and never bothered to pull it when we were being attacked.”

  “We had you and the marshal to save us,” she said plainly.

  “You’re not concerned about the train passengers. Just yourself.

  And me.”

  “You shouldn’t have run. Meridian put a lot of money into you.

  Quarantining your software rights daemon was stupid. You would have been processed out. Why couldn’t you wait?”

  He chuckled. “Maybe you haven’t done your homework. I’ve got last century’s Insight module in my head. That doesn’t just unplug.

  Meridian doesn’t let its property walk, even if it’s out of date. Why do you think I’ve been on active duty so long? They couldn’t let me retire. They don’t know what to do with me.”

  “Nonsense. There’re good surgeons. I’ve seen them work. They even taught me a few tricks. But it doesn’t matter now. Settle in. This road will take us south, and if we don’t get delayed, we’ll be in Seraph before morning. A rescue party will save the train. And you’ll be returned to Meridian. They’ll square you away.”

  Kill me, you mean. But he kept the comment to himself. She wasn’t stupid, but was only telling him what any trained operator would say to a target you needed to keep under your control.

  Promise anything. Keep hope alive. It was when a mark knew they had no hope that they caused trouble.

  He nodded at the burner pointing his direction. “Put that down before you put your eye out.”

  “It’s not pointing at me.”

  “You’ve got two shots left. Doubt you missed that. There are more bad guys out here, and we’ll need it.”

  The burner didn’t waver.

  Steering with one hand, she slowed to navigate a series of deep ruts. “You said it yourself. We took care of the machines that were chasing you. That’s three more not attacking the train. The passengers will hold out. This host person is bluffing. And the flying drone which hit us? A big risk for anyone. If the people upstairs spot the launch site, they’re dead.”

  The people upstairs. The watchers. Caretaker holdouts. Sore losers tucked away inside hollowed moon craters. Everyone knew why no one flew anywhere. Killer satellites in high orbit would shoot any plane or rocket down. But there hadn’t been a recorded strike in

  thirty years. It didn’t mean no one used an airplane, but they saved it for cloudy days.

  He needed to push the matter and try another angle. “So when you’re not lawyering, you do side work as a bounty hunter.”

  “Not to be rude, but why don’t we both stay quiet and let me drive?”

  “Turning your back on everyone at the train won’t look good on your record. If the host follows through with his threat, they’ll be murdered. We can do something about it.”

  “You’re broken, and like you said, the burner has two shots. My pistol isn’t the best weapon. So if the host has more toys, we can’t stand against an army.”

  “Might not be an army, just a lot of parts that keep getting put back together. I didn’t see any flying drone hardware in their hideout.

  And this host has kept himself separate from the gang. There must be another location in phone signal range. If I were to guess, it’s the same place they took their prisoners.”

  She said, “I guess that’s what they were trying to do with you just now. Capture you. If they wanted to kill you, they wouldn’t have gotten so close. It’s too risky and stupid. If they had decided to just burn you down, a one-eyed ex-cop with two charges in his flash gun wouldn’t stop them.”

  He braced against the dash and ceiling as they jaunted over another rough section of road. “Now do you believe me when I say there’s something out here that doesn’t add up? Help me. You care.

 

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