DEV1AT3 (DEVIATE)

“Stay there, Freckles.”

“True cert,” she nodded. “I’m too pretty to die.”

Pushing the hatch open, he was gone. Lemon watched on cams as the lifelike dashed off, skipping sideways to avoid another rocket blast. He moved like a song through the broken stone, disappearing up the gully into the smoke and the dusk.

“Run, ye three-inch coward!” one of the rocketeers cried.

Meantime, Cricket was toe-to-toeing the enemy machina. Crick was still getting used to his new body—the old one had been forty centimeters tall, after all, and he clearly wasn’t quite at home in the body of a seven-meter-high WarBot. But the Quixote had been made by the best techs in Gnosis R & D, and Crick’s strength was scarygood. With one titanic fist, he crushed the machina’s autoguns to scrap, tearing them off in a hail of sparks. The scavver pilot reared his machina up onto its hind legs, roared into the PA.

“Have at thee, villain!”

A burst of fire exploded from the machina’s jaws, engulfing Cricket in blue flame. A blast like that would’ve probably melted his old bod to slag, and instinctively, Crick flinched away with a booming, electronic yelp. The machina pilot followed up with a swipe from one massive front leg, smashing the logika into the gully wall. A victorious cry went up from the rocketeers above.

“A hit!”

“A very palpable hit!”

“Who are these goons?” Lemon muttered, shaking her head.

Cricket climbed back onto his feet as the machina crashed into him, seizing one of his arms in those earthmover jaws. Crick struck back, tearing away the panelwork at the beast’s throat to expose the hydraulics beneath.

Meanwhile, Ezekiel had climbed the cliffs farther down the gully, and made his way back under the cover of dusk. Thanks to the Libertas virus, lifelikes weren’t beholden to the First Law, and Ezekiel had proved in the past he had no problems with grievous bodily harm when it came to protecting his friends. He stole up behind the scavvers in the first rocket emplacement, and without ceremony, booted one over the sandbags and onto the jagged rocks ten meters below.

Cricket ripped loose a handful of cables from the machina’s throat, hydraulic fluid spewing from the rends. The jaws lost pressure and Crick pulled his arm free, raising one enormous fist to slam the head into the ground. But before the blow could land, his optics began flickering, and the big bot wobbled on his feet.

He took a step backward, struggling to keep his balance.

“I DON’T FEEL SO …”

The machina pivoted, its massive tail knocking Cricket back up the gully. The big bot tumbled along the ground, crashing to a halt against the grav-tank’s rear. Lemon fell out of her seat again, wiping the blood from her split eyebrow as she peered at cams. The big bot was trying to stand, but his movements were sluggish, clumsy, like he’d spent a hard night on the home brew.

“Crick, what’s wrong?” she asked.

“I DON’T …”

“… Crick, you gotta get up!”

The dinomachina was stomping toward him, jaws limp, one floodlight smashed. Ezekiel had leapt the six meters across the gully to the other emplacement, and was busy ending the second crew. But as Lemon watched, the scavver pilot slapped a control pad in his cockpit, and a cluster of short-range rockets popped from the machina’s shoulders, ready to unload right at Zeke’s exposed back.

“Fat-kidneyed rascal!” the scavver cried.

The situation had turned a deep shade of ugly.

Lemon knew she should stay in the tank. It was safer there. She was still aching and tired from the Babel throwdown, and feeling kinda queasy, talking true. But Cricket was her friend. Ezekiel was her friend. And beat and sick though she felt, Lemon had lost enough friends already today. Without thinking, she lunged toward the tank’s hatch, popped up into the smoke and flame. And fixing the machina in her stare, she dragged her cherry-red bangs from her eyes, pulled her helmet on tighter and stretched out her hand.

She’d been twelve years old when she first used It. Just a skinny little scavvergirl, scratching out a living on the meanstreets of Los Diablos. It’d been late at night outside the Skin District, and she’d stolen a credstik, slipped it into an auto-peddler for a quick meal. But the automata had swallowed her stik, no food to show for it, and Lem had just lost it. Rage boiling in her empty belly. A gray static, building up behind her eyes. She’d made a fist and punched the bot, and the automata had spat sparks and burst clean open, spewing cans of Neo-Meat™ from its belly.

She’d snatched up a few meals and run. Fast and far as she could before the Graycoats or the Brotherhood saw her. Knowing from that very first moment she had to hide it, lie on it, stomp it down and never show or tell anyone what she was.

Trashbreed.

Abnorm.

Deviate.

Now, looking at the big, lumbering machina, Lemon pictured that auto-peddler. Felt that gray static building up behind her eyes. Fingers stretched toward it.

And then she made a fist.

The machina bucked like someone had punched it. Hydraulics shrieked, power cables burst, a blinding shear of electrical current arced across its rusting skin. The pilot screamed, frying inside the cockpit as the voltage lit him up, as his machina stumbled and crumpled like paper into a smoking, sparking heap.

Fried to ruins.

Just like that.

Behind her, the last rocketeer plunged into the gully floor with an awful, wet crunch. Ezekiel shouted down from the emplacement above.

“You okay, Freckles?”

Lemon hauled off her helmet, blinking blood from her eye. Her heart was hammering in her chest, but she put on her braveface. Her streetface. The face that told the world she was big enough to handle anything it threw at her and more.

“Toldja already, Dimples. I’m too pretty to die.”

She grabbed a chem-extinguisher with shaking hands, climbed out of the turret and doused the burning hull. Jumping onto the tank’s rear, she sized up Cricket. The big bot was dented and scratched from his brawl, but his paintjob was apparently flame-retardant, so the good news was he wasn’t on fire.

“You okay, you little fug?”

“I … THINK SO?” The big bot shrugged. “AND D-DON’T CALL ME LITTLE.”

Ezekiel carefully scaled down from the emplacement, dropping the final three meters onto the rocks below. Dusting his palm against his battered jeans, he made his way across the broken stone, fugazi blue eyes on the fallen logika.

“What happened?”

“EAT IT, STUMPY,” the big bot growled. “A NICE BIG BOWL OF IT.”

“Seriously, Crick,” Lemon said. “Are you all right?”

“YEAH. I’M … GOOD? I TH-THINK?”

Cricket stood on wobbling legs, the glow of his optics flickering and fluttering. He steadied himself against the gully wall, barely able to keep himself upright. Ezekiel sighed, and spinning on his heel, he climbed into the tank. A few moments later, he emerged with a heavy toolbox under his one good arm.

“Sit down,” he said, motioning to the broken rock. “Let me have a look.”

“… YOU’RE SUGGESTING I LET YOU POKE AROUND INSIDE ME?” Cricket fixed the lifelike in a flickering stare. “I THOUGHT LEMON WAS THE COMEDIAN IN THIS OUTFIT.”

Lemon frowned at the big bot. “Wait, I thought you were the comedy relief, and I was the lovable sidekick?”

“Cricket, if there’s something wrong with you, maybe I can spot it,” Ezekiel said. “I know a little about bots. Not as much as Eve, but a little.”

The mention of her bestest’s name brought a fresh ache in Lemon’s chest, a stillness to the group. Ezekiel glanced back toward Babel, and she could see how bad he was hurting, too. They’d had no choice. Evie had told them to leave. But …

“DON’T YOU DARE SAY HER NAME,” the logika growled.

Ezekiel blinked, turned back to the logika.

“I miss her, too, Cricket,” he murmured.

“OF COURSE YOU DO, MURDERBOT,” Cricket said. “THAT’S WHY YOU RAN AWAY FROM HER AS FAST AS YOU COULD.”

“She told me to leave,” Ezekiel said, his voice rising with his temper. “This was her choice. The first one she ever had in her life, don’t you get that?”

The big logika’s massive metal hands spangspangspanggged as he brought them together in a round of applause.

“OH, MISTER EZEKIEL, YOU’RE MY HERO.”

Lemon raised her hands, stepped between them. “Now, now, boys—”

“Go to hell, Cricket,” Ezekiel hissed. “What do you know about it?”

“I KNOW YOU LEFT HER BEHIND,” the bot growled, standing taller as his voice grew louder. “I KNOW EVERYBODY LIED TO HER! EVERYBODY BETRAYED HER! SILAS, LEMON, HER FATHER, YOU! CAN YOU IMAGINE FOR ONE MINUTE WHAT THAT FELT LIKE?”

“I didn’t want t—”

“AND THEN SHE FINDS OUT SHE’S NOT EVEN HUMAN AND YOU CLAIM TO LOVE HER AND YOU JUST LEFT HER THERE!”

Lemon’s heart was hammering. Every one of Cricket’s words was like a bullet fired right at Ezekiel’s chest. She saw them strike. Saw the rage welling up in the lifelike’s eyes, twisting his hands into fists.

“So did you,” he spat at the bot.

The blue of Cricket’s optics burned into a furious white.

“YOU ROTTEN SONOFA …”

A two-ton fist came crashing down on the spot Ezekiel had stood a split second before, the ground shattering like glass. Cricket roared in shapeless rage, swung at Ezekiel again, the lifelike once more slipping aside. The big bot tried to scoop him up, but Ezekiel was faster, darting between Cricket’s legs and leaping up to seize hold of the armor plating on his lower back with his one good hand.

“Cricket, are you crazy?” Lemon shouted.

Cricket roared again, his voice box crackling at the volume. He slapped at the lifelike as if he were an insect, massive hands clanging against his hull like some great, booming gong. Ezekiel’s superhuman agility was all that saved him from being pulverized, the lifelike hauling himself up the seams and rivets in the WarBot’s impenetrable hull until he reached his shoulder.

“Cricket, stop!” Lemon wailed. “STOP IT!”

The logika fell still immediately at the girl’s command. He bristled with outrage, glowing optics fixed on the lifelike perched atop his shoulder.

“YOU’RE LUCKY SOME OF US STILL OBEY THE THREE LAWS, M-MOTH …”

The big bot swayed, his optics flickering again.

“Crick … are you okay?” Lemon called.

“I D-DON’T FEEL S-SO …”

The light in the logika’s optics flickered one final time and went out completely. His towering body wobbled a second longer, then fell like a collapsing skyscraper. Seventy tons of WarDome champion came falling right at Lemon’s head, and she shrieked as she dove aside, hitting the gully floor, elbows grinding in the gravel as Cricket crashed to the ground with a boom.

Ezekiel picked himself up from the dust, ran to the girl’s side.

“Are you all right?” he asked, helping her to her feet.

Lemon winced, pawed at her bloody brow, her bleeding arms. But her eyes were fixed on Cricket. The big bot had dropped like someone had shot him, and now lay motionless on the broken ground.

“What the hells just happened?” she whispered.

Ezekiel looked the big bot over, hands on hips. Walking to the tank’s toolbox, he started rummaging around inside. “Let’s find out.”

Lemon watched, chewing her lip with worry as the lifelike took a power drill and began unbolting a maintenance hatch on Cricket’s chestplate.

“Um, do you know what you’re doing, by any chance?” she asked.

Zeke mumbled around the bolts held between his teeth. “Not really, no.”

“Oh, goody.”

Ezekiel pulled back the small armor plate and looked over the readouts inside. He poked and prodded, his pretty brow furrowed, finally leaning back with a sigh.

“Power,” he declared.

Lemon blinked. “He’s outta juice?”

“I’m not an expert, but yeah, looks like.” Zeke tapped a series of LED readouts inside the cavity. “Batteries are at one percent. Been sitting inactive inside that R & D bay for two years, his levels must have run close to zero through disuse. Should’ve checked them before we left, I guess. Stupid of me.”

“Um,” Lemon said. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any spares in your pockets?”

“From the look of them, these powercells weigh about a ton apiece.”

“So that’s a no?”

The lifelike glanced back over his shoulder again, brow creased in thought. His voice was almost too soft for Lemon to hear.

“They’d have spares back at Babel, though. In the armory.”

“… You wanna go back? We just left!”

He looked from the hollow tower in the distance, back to their broken bot. “Got a better idea?”

“Our tank is buried under a squillion tons of rock, Dimples.”

“There’s no such thing as a squillion. But yeah, I noticed.”

“So wait, lemme get this straight.” Lemon folded her arms. “You’re suggesting we walk back across a couple of hundred kilometers of irradiated wasteland, to a tower full of murderbots who’ll probably be back up and moving by the time we arrive? And then drag one-ton batteries back out here, hoping the other dustnecks who live in this gully haven’t stripped Cricket for parts in the meantime?”

“… You raise a good point.”

Lemon gave a shoddy curtsy. “Several, I think you’ll find.”

Ezekiel pouted, rubbing his chin in thought.

“You’re right,” he finally declared. “You should stay here in the tank.”

“… You wanna leave me here by myself?”

“It’s not a plan without flaws.” Ezekiel shrugged. “But it’s safer here inside this thing’s armor, and I’ll move quicker alone. And, again … if you’ve got a better one?”

Lemon plopped down onto the turret. She knew less about logika than Ezekiel did, which was a nice way of saying she knew nothing at all. And if there was a problem with Crick’s power supply, a fresh battery sounded like the only kind of fix.

But going back there meant maybe running into Gabriel. Faith. Eve.

Going back to Babel meant leaving her here alone.

Abandoned.

Again.

Lemon pulled off her helmet, brushed the dirt off her freckles. She racked her skull for another way out of this, but she’d never been the brains of their outfit. If there was a smarter play to make, true cert, she couldn’t see it.

“You know, crawling out of bed today?”

Lemon shook her head and sighed.

“Really bad move.”

2.2

JACKED

“Now remember, stay in the tank,” Zeke said.

Lemon rubbed at the bandage he’d placed over her split brow. “Yes, Dad.”

“Keep the hatch sealed, no matter what.” The lifelike reached into the weapons locker, shoved a heavy pistol down the back of his grubby jeans. “I don’t care if a guy knocks on the door offering free pony rides, you keep it shut.”

“Ponies are extinct.”

“You remember what I showed you about the guns, right? This is your targeting system. When it’s locked, you trip the safety and fire with this.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Just keep your head down. I’ll be back before you can say ‘Ezekiel is the bravest and most handsomest boy I know.’”

“… I see what you did there, Dimples.”

The lifelike knelt beside her. He was smiling at his own joke, but she could see concern in his baby blues. “Look, I’ll be quick, okay? I move fast, I don’t tire easily. As soon as I get the powercells and wheels, I’ll run straight back here.”

“You sure you’re just going back there for batteries?” she asked softly.

“… What other reason would I have?”

Lemon raised one eyebrow, fixed him in a withering stare.

“I’m not going back for Eve,” the lifelike insisted.

“Rrrrrright.”

“She’s not Ana, Lemon,” Ezekiel said. “She never was.”

Lemon chewed her lip, trying to fight the weight that had been growing on her shoulders ever since they left Babel. She knew there were more important things to worry about, that now wasn’t really the time. Still, she couldn’t help but ask.

“Okay, so how long until you bail on me for real, then?”

Ezekiel blinked, taken aback. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, that’s your plan, right?” Lemon looked hard into those fugazi eyes. “Myriad told us the real Ana Monrova is still out there somewhere. Hurt maybe, but still alive. Daddy Monrova hid her. And you’re all head over heels for her. So you’re eventually gonna wanna find her, right?”

“… I hadn’t really thought about it.”

Lemon rolled her eyes. “Rule Number Seven in the Scrap, Dimples. Never scam a scammer.”

The lifelike sighed, looked up through the open hatch to the night above. This deep in the wastes, you could actually see a few of the brighter stars up there, struggling to shine through the curtain of pollution and airborne fallout. The starlight kissed Ezekiel’s cheeks, gleamed in his eyes, and Lemon’s chest hurt a little at the sight of him. She knew he’d never belong to her. That the warm fuzzy she got in her belly when he called her Freckles was never going to be more than that.

But damn he was pretty …

A tiny light shot overhead, twinkling as it fell toward the horizon. Lemon watched it spin through the dark, wondering if she should make a wish.

“Shooting star,” she murmured.

Ezekiel followed the falling light with those pretty plastic eyes, shaking his head. “It’s just a satellite. There’s thousands up there. Left over from before the Fall.”

“Sometimes I wonder if your maker put any romance in your soul at all, Dimples,” she said sourly. “And other times, I think they gave you way too much.”

“Have you ever been in love, Lemon?” he asked.

“Nah.” Lemon sniffed, wiped her nose on her grubby sleeve. “I kissed a boy named Chopper a few times. He was a gutter runner in Dregs like me. It was nice. But then he got a little gropey and I kinda sorta broke his nose a little bit.”

Ezekiel smiled lopsided, his dimple on high beam, and Lemon’s belly went all tingly despite herself.

“You will be one day,” he promised. “I know it. And then you’ll understand.”

“… You’re in love with Ana, huh? Got it real bad.”

“Yeah,” the lifelike replied, fervor in his eyes. “But the good kind of bad.”

“But you loved Eve, too.”

“I thought Eve was Ana, Lemon.”

The girl sighed, flipped her bangs from her eyes. “Look, Dimples, I didn’t spend too long in that tower, but I’m smart enough to know the girl who grew up in a palace like that had about zero in common with the girl you met in Dregs. Eve is Eve. Riotgrrl. Botdoc. Hard as nails. And you still loved her. I love her, too. So why are we just leaving her behind? Why don’t we both go back there and get her?”

The lifelike thought a long while before he answered.

“This is Eve’s choice, Lemon. And she never really had one before now. I know it’s hard, but we can’t force her to leave. That’d make us just as bad as Monrova and Silas.” He ran his hand over his stubbled chin and sighed. “Ana was the girl who taught me what it was to be alive. And if she’s still out there somewhere? I owe it to her to find her. These past two years, walking through this wasteland … Sometimes thoughts of her were all that kept me going.”

“So let’s say fairy tales come true and you manage to track her down,” Lemon said. “What if the girl you find isn’t the girl you remember?”

“She’ll always be the girl I remember. She’s the girl who made me real.”

Lemon felt fear dig its icy fingers inside of her. Ever since she’d been left behind in that detergent box as a bub, she’d been afraid of being alone. It’d taken her years to work up the courage to trust Evie, trust Silas, trust anyone not to abandon her the way her folks had. And now she was on the verge of losing it all.

“Look, I know she’s important to you,” she told Zeke. “But with Eve staying in Babel and Cricket OOC, I’m rapidly running out of crew. And true cert, without Evie, I don’t even know what I’m doing out here. I’m the sidekick, Dimples. I can’t carry this show by myself.”

Ezekiel’s eyes softened, and he gently squeezed her hand. “I won’t bail on you, Lemon. I’m coming back, I promise.”

Looking into that pretty, plastic blue, Lemon felt a lump rising in her throat. Stomping the tears down with her oversized boots, she tossed her bangs out of her face and replied with her customary bravado.

“Spit on it, then.”

“… What?”

Lemon spat into her palm, offered it to the lifelike.

“Rule Number Nine in the Scrap. Spit makes it stick.”

With a smirk, Ezekiel spat into his hand, sealed the pact with a shake. Lemon felt the weight on her shoulders ease off a little. The night shine a little brighter.

“Okay,” she said, raising a finger to his face. “Don’t be a welcher now.”

Ezekiel smiled, pulled the oversized gunner’s helmet back on Lemon’s head. “Stay in the tank. Pony-ride salesmen or no. I’ll take one of these headsets, so if you want anything, you just yell, all right?”

Lemon pressed the transmit button on her comms rig and yelled, “Clean socks! And something to read!”

Zeke ripped off his headset with a wince.

“Walked into that one,” Lemon grinned.

The lifelike leaned down and kissed the top of her helmet. “Stay safe.”

Ezekiel stole off into the night, just as quiet as the rest of it.

With a sad sigh, Lemon locked the hatch behind him.

She woke to the strangest sound.

Lemon’s eyes shot open, and though she was sitting in the turret of a top-of-the-line killing machine, she reached instinctively for the small knife stashed in her belt buckle. She used to slit pockets with it, back in her Los Diablos days. Slit anyone who got too far into her face, too, talking true.

Seeing no immediate threat, Lemon pawed the crusties from her eyes. From the heat radiating through the tank hull, she guessed the sun was already up—she must’ve slept the whole night away. Did she imagine that noise or did she …

Nope. There it goes again.

It was weird. A sort of bubbly gurgling. And with growing alarm, Lemon realized it was coming from her own stomach.

“Ohhhh, crap …”

Lemon leaned forward and vomited all over the floor. It was the kind of sick that left you feeling like you’d been hollowed out with a spork. Groaning, she wiped the puke off her chin just in time to vomit again. Eyes filled with tears, toes curling, she gave the can of Neo-Meat™ she’d scoffed last night right back to the world.

“Urgggg,” she moaned at the end of it. “Septic.”

She drew a few shuddering breaths, trying to make up her mind if she was going to chuck again. Deciding she was safe for the moment, she grabbed her bottle of H2O, rinsed her mouth and realized too late that she had nowhere to spit.

Ezekiel had ordered her not to leave the tank.

He’d been very specific about it.

Cheek ballooning, Lemon stabbed at her console, lighting up the turret cams. She could see the ruins of the scavvers’ machina outside, the tumbled sandstone, Cricket lying sprawled where he’d fallen.

Looks safe enough?

Deciding Dimples would have been a little more relaxed if he knew she’d be trapped in here with the stink of fresh vomit, Lemon cranked open the hatch, stuck her head up and spat. Rinsing her mouth, she spat again, pulling down her goggles against the blinding light and peering at the gully around her.

The sun had only just cleared the horizon, but the air around her was already rippling—it was going to be a feral day. Lemon scoped the rocks one last time, but seeing no trouble, she crawled out of the tank to escape the smell. Her belly was aching kinda fierce, her hands a little shaky.