LIFEL1K3

“And yet here we both are.”

Eve dropped onto her belly as the newcomer twisted from cover, sidearm raised, unleashing a volley of something razor sharp and whistling at Ezekiel’s cover. A series of tiny, pin-bright explosions tore the tires to ruins. Through the growing dust storm, she saw Ezekiel break from the shredded rubber, leap behind a stack of trashed auto hulks.

The lifelike reloaded, raised its pistol too fast to track. Sparks arced and ricocheted as Ezekiel ducked out of cover and blasted away. Down on her hands and knees, Eve crawled on through the trash, listening for Kaiser’s whines. A stray bullet whizzed over her head, the stench of burning tires making her dry-heave.

Grandpa bellowed over the engine roar. “Evie, get inside, dammit!”

Eve peered up from her cover. She was almost close enough to make a dash for the Spartan now, but she didn’t dare without knowing where the enemy was. Her eyes met Ezekiel’s across the ruins, and the lifelike shook its head. Gesturing that she should head back to the house. She heard a whimper somewhere out in the trash.

Hold on, puppy …

She was drenched, sweat burning her eyes. She tore off her poncho, tossed it away. On her belly now, crawling toward Kaiser’s voice. Ezekiel saw she was refusing to retreat, seemed to decide distracting their opponent was the best way to keep Eve un-murdered.

“I don’t want to fight you, Faith,” it called.

“I don’t blame you.” Faith’s reply rang somewhere out in the tangle of metal and bodies. “I can’t help but notice you’ve misplaced one of your arms.”

“I only ever needed the one to beat you.”

The lifelike’s laughter rang across the scrap.

“Pride cometh before the fall, little brother.”

“You’d know, big sister.”

… Brother? Sister?

Eve caught sight of movement, saw the newcomer crouched beside a tumble of old tires, slowly creeping around Ezekiel’s flank. And over the rising engine roar, the house groaning in its metal bones, she heard another soft whimper.

Kaiser …

There might be only a handful of meat in him that was real, but that handful needed her. If she broke cover, she’d be seen for sure. But if Grandpa was worried enough about this lifelike to try to get the house airborne, there was no way Eve was just going to leave her dog behind to rot.

She dashed out into the open, sprinting toward the Iron Bishop’s machina. Grandpa hollered over the PA. Ezekiel cried a warning as Faith rose from cover, pistol in hand. Trash was crunching under Eve’s boots, her lungs burning. But she ran. Fists flailing, heart hammering, across the bodies and wreckage, vaulting into the Spartan and slamming the cockpit closed. Stabbing the ignition, she slipped her arms and feet into the control sleeves. The machina roared to life around her, its engines thrumming in her bones.

Whatever the hells was happening here, this was something she knew.

This was something she could do.

Her plasma cannon vomited white heat, incinerating the newcomer’s cover. The thing called Faith was already moving, dashing toward Eve’s Spartan when Ezekiel appeared from cover and charged shoulder-first into Faith’s belly. The impact was thunderous, tearing a long furrow through the scrap as the lifelikes fell into a rolling brawl. Fists blurring. Blood and spit and wet, crunching thuds.

Eve lumbered through the wreckage in her machina, heavy feet crushing metal like it was paper. She scanned the scrap, caught sight of Kaiser in a pile of old retreads. He was dragging himself with his front paws, hind legs motionless. Eve tore the tires aside, reached down with huge, gentle hands, cupped the wounded blitzhund to her Spartan’s chest.

“It’s okay, puppy,” she breathed. “I got you.”

Kaiser licked the Spartan’s hand with his heat-sink tongue.

Eve lumbered back across the battleground, through the black smoke and rising storm of dust and dirt, toward home. The house was shuddering now, the squeal of tortured metal rising over the engines’ thunder. She couldn’t see Ezekiel or the other lifelike. Eyes fixed on her front door. The welds across the house were splitting, the freighter finally getting some lift, the rest of the homestead shearing away under its own weight. Eve ran hard as she could, every colossal step bringing her closer.

Forty meters away.

Thirty.

A proximity alarm screeched in her ear. Eve had time to hunch as three hundred kilos of engine block crashed across her Spartan’s back. The machina was sent stumbling, gyros whining. Another impact, this time into her legs, an enormous tractor tire bringing the Spartan to its knees. The thing called Faith leapt high onto her Spartan’s back, tearing out handfuls of cable. The hydraulics in Eve’s left arm lost pressure, Kaiser tumbling from her grip. Eve reached back with her good arm, seized the lifelike and hurled it as hard as she could. Faith crunched into a twisted loop of roller coaster track, belly tearing open. Pseudo-blood spilled on rusted steel. Lips and teeth slicked ruby red.

Eve tore free of her harness and hit the cockpit eject. Bursting out into the rising roar, she seized Kaiser’s scruff and dragged him toward the house. Dust in her good eye. Blood on her tongue. Kaiser whimpered, tried to crawl as best he could. He was so heavy. How would she lift him through the hatch? How could she—

A figure appeared beside her. Blood-spattered skin and eyes of fugazi blue.

“I’ve got him!” Ezekiel shouted. “Go!”

Eve stumbled toward the house, ribs and arm and head aching. The freighter was almost two meters off the ground now, still rising. Eve hauled herself through the doorway, boots kicking against the hull. Ezekiel leapt through the hatch in a single bound right behind her, Kaiser under its arm. Eve was on all fours. Chest pounding. Throat burning. And somehow she found breath to scream.

“Go, Grandpa, go!”

The house shuddered beneath her, its engines roaring in protest. Metal snapping, welds shattering, whole sections tearing away as the freighter rose into the sky, raining dirt and dust and crud. She was tossed like a plaything against the walls as she tried to stand, bouncing into Ezekiel’s chest. The lifelike caught hold of her, the pair of them falling to the deck in a tangle. Eve looked down at the sweating, blood-soaked thing beneath her—this thing that wore the shape of a beautiful boy. A boy who’d just saved her life. A boy who wasn’t anything like a boy at all. She could feel its body, hard and warm against her own.

“Are you all right?” Ezekiel asked.

Eve pushed herself away, palms slick with pseudo-blood. If she didn’t know better, she’d have said the blood looked real. If she didn’t know better …

“I’m fine.” She turned to Kaiser on the deck beside her. “You okay, puppy?”

The blitzhund was dented and torn, the hole in his belly spitting sparks. A quick glance told her the damage wasn’t anything she couldn’t fix—nothing meat was ruined. Flooded with relief, she hugged him fiercely. His tail wagged feebly.

Ezekiel was watching her, those too-blue eyes fixed on hers.

“What’re you looking at?” she scowled.

A nod to Kaiser. “He’s a machine.”

“So?”

“So you still love him.” That almost perfect smile curled its lips. “It’s sweet.”

Eve shook her head, dragged herself to her feet. “You’re a weird one, Braintrauma.”

Grandpa’s voice echoed over the house PA. “Eve, you all right?”

She hobbled to a comms pad, stabbed the TRANSMIT button with bloody fingers.

“I’m okay. Kaiser’s ambulation is shot. But he’s alive.”

“In a world of stupid … that was the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.” A hacking cough crackled through the speaker. “He’s an artificial, Eve. He gets hurt so you don’t have to.”

“Really? You’re chewing me out now? I love you, Grandpa, but time and place?”

Silas seemed keen to say more, but his transmission dissolved into another coughing fit. Lemon and Cricket appeared at the end of the corridor, the little machina still clutching Excalibur. The girl pounded toward Eve and caught her up in a rib-crushing hug.

“You okay, Riotgrrl?”

“Fizzy.”

“Did you know Silas could fly this thing? Did you even know this thing could fly?”

“Grandpa’s definitely pro at keeping secrets.” She glanced at the lifelike, now hauling itself up the wall with its one good arm and testing its right leg gingerly. It looked like it’d had whatever passed for the stuffing kicked out of it. “You fizzy, Braintrauma?”

“I’ve had worse beatings,” it replied. “Trust me.”

“Can you carry Kaiser with only one arm? I need to take him down to the worksh—”

The ship lunged sideways, sending Lemon into Eve and Eve into the wall. Cricket yelped and tumbled across the corridor, ending upside down against the bulkhead. There was a loud metallic crunch, a long squeal. The freighter shuddered again, rolling up onto its port side and sending everyone to their knees. Ezekiel grabbed Eve to stop her cracking her skull open on the bulkhead. Its arm was like warm iron, wrapped around her chest and crushing the breath out of her.

“Get off me …,” she gasped.

“What was that?” Lemon demanded.

Eve was pulling herself to her feet when the internal PA crackled. Grandpa’s voice was hoarse with pain, almost drowned out by roaring wind. “Eve, she’s in—”

The transmission dropped dead with a hiss of static.

Ezekiel met Eve’s frightened stare.

“Faith …,” he said.

“Grandpa!” Eve snatched Excalibur from Cricket’s hands and bolted down the corridor. Lemon ran beside her. Cricket wailing in protest. She could hear the lifelike bringing up the rear, limping badly after its beatdown.

They ran through the warren of corridors, up to the cockpit, tearing open a hatchway and stepping out into a rushing gale. The windshield was smashed to splinters, glittering on the floor. Grandpa’s electric wheelchair was on its side, wheels still humming. Wind howled through the shattered glass. Eve could see ashen sky beyond, the island of Dregs sailing away beneath their feet. Black ocean in the distance. No one at the controls.

“Grandpa?” she cried.

Lemon peered out through the broken windshield.

“… Mister C?”

A bloodied hand reached down from outside, slammed Lemon’s head into the console. She collapsed, blood dripping from her split brow. Eve clenched her fists as a figure dropped in through the broken glass. Blood crusted in its ragged bangs. Glistening wounds in its belly and chest. Eyes the flat gray of a dead telescreen.

“Hello, Ana.” Faith smiled. “You look wonderful for a dead girl.”

Thinking only of her grandpa, Eve swung Excalibur with all her strength. Faith parried with a forearm, hissing as the shock rocked it back into the console. The lifelike recovered in a heartbeat, slapped the bat from Eve’s hand with almost casual ease.

Eve still had the self-defense routines in her Memdrive to fall back on, landing a decent jab on the lifelike’s jaw before a single punch drove the breath from her lungs. She was seized by the throat, hauled into a choke hold.

“Gabriel will be so pleased to see you,” Faith whispered in her ear.

Eve struggled to speak against the lifelike’s grip. “What did you … do with—”

“Silas? He’s in my flex-wing, dead girl.” The lifelike thumbed a control at its belt. Eve heard engines roar to life above her head. “Don’t worry. I’m taking you both home.”

“If you’ve … hurt my … grandpa—”

“… Grandfather?” A sharp smile twisted those perfect lips. “Oh, you poor girl. What has he been telling you?”

Black flowers bloomed in Eve’s good eye. Tiny star flared and died as her pulse slowed. A roaring in her ears. A white-noise hiss. And beneath it all, a little voice, high and shrill. Yelling her name.

“Evie!”

A dark shape barreled into the cockpit, a silhouette in the light of a too-bright sun. Eve felt an impact, heard a wet crunch. She fell to her knees, hacking and coughing, stars in her eyes. Cricket was beside her, begging her to run. She was dimly aware of shapes moving in the cockpit—two figures, a dance of fists and knees and elbows. Blinding sparks. Metal tearing. The pilot’s seat uprooted. The console crushed like an old caff cup.

The freighter wrenched to one side. Eve rolled across the deck, struggled to her knees. Cricket was roaring over the pulse in her ears, the pain in her head. She could see Faith and Ezekiel, hands at each other’s throats, their brawl shredding the case-hardened steel around them as if it were wet cardboard.

She pressed her hand to her throat, still trying to breathe. Cricket was at the controls, trying to pull the barge up from its dive. Faith broke Ezekiel’s hold, kicked the lifelike against the console, bouncing Cricket off the walls and snapping the control wheel off at the root. Pawing along the deck, Eve’s fingers wrapped around Excalibur’s hilt. And with a muffled curse, she cracked the bat across Faith’s spine.

A surge of 500kV. A burst of current. Faith cried out, landed a thunderous punch to the side of Eve’s head. Eve heard a damp crunch as the lifelike’s fist collided with her Memdrive, felt a blinding flash of pain. She dropped to the deck, gasping and clutching her skull. White light behind her eyes.

Ezekiel was on its feet, roaring Faith’s name and smashing the lifelike across the head with the broken wheel. And with a desperate cry, Ezekiel drew back its boot and kicked Faith out through the shattered windshield.

Faith tumbled toward the black ocean below. But over the static in her ears, Eve heard engines snarl on the ceiling above, squealing metal, and seconds later, a flex-wing roared down in pursuit of the falling lifelike.

Blood rushing in her temples. Vomit on her tongue. Blinding sparks in her eyes; broken images flickering in her head like some old 20C movie projector. The console was smashed to scrap, the controls a broken mess. The thought that her grandpa was inside that flex-wing flashed in her mind, shouted down by the knowledge that she couldn’t see the horizon through the shattered glass anymore. All she could see was black. Breakers made of Styrofoam. Gnashing waves, the color of sump grease.

The ocean.

She shook her head, trying to clear it.

But we’re flying in the sky, aren’t we?

Ezekiel dragged her into the copilot’s seat. Threw Lemon on top and strapped them both in. Her stomach lurched as the barge listed farther, the pain in her head growing worse. The engine roar swelled, louder and higher. She realized gravity wasn’t working right, that Cricket was bouncing along the ceiling. She could hear Kaiser barking in the background. Ezekiel yelling. Turbines screaming. Staring out through the shattered glass into a black and smiling face. So close she could almost kiss the waves.

Kiss them goodbye.

“Ana, hold on!” Ezekiel was roaring. “Hold on!”

He keeps calling me Ana.

“HOLD ON!”

But my name is Eve …

Her stomach in her throat. Holding Lemon tight.

She realized she didn’t want to die.

She hadn’t liked it much the first time.

Impact.

1.7

PREACHER

Dust howled across the wreckage of Tire Valley, tumbled and tossed in the grip of a blood-warm wind. The trash was black and smoking, the tires melted to bubbling puddles. A crater littered with broken shipping containers and shattered wind turbines was all that remained to mark the spot where the house of Silas Carpenter had once stood.

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