Читать книгу: «DEV1AT3 (DEVIATE)»

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Epigraph

The Who, What and Why

Map

2.0: Reunion

Part 1: Mitosis and Meiosis

2.1: Splitsville

2.2: Jacked

2.3: Change

2.4: Proposition

2.5: Helotry

2.6: Disciples

2.7: Solomon

2.8: Paladin

2.9: Easy

2.10: Rumble

2.11: Family

Part 2: By Means of Natural Selection

2.12: Order

2.13: Fix

2.14: Purity

2.15: Superior

2.16: Falls

2.17: Legacy

2.18: Bending

2.19: Shock

2.20: Partners

2.21: Tagalong

2.22: Unbecoming

Part 3: Survival of the Fittest

2.23: Cake

2.24: Jugartown

2.25: Dustup

2.26: Fracas

2.27: Equalizer

2.28: Fear

2.29: Burn

2.30: Collision

2.31: Descent

2.32: Immolation

2.33: Coda

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Jay Kristoff

About the Publisher

THE WHO, WHAT AND WHY

Eve—the thirteenth and final model in the Lifelike series. Raised to believe she was human, Eve spent the last two years on the island of Dregs in the care of Silas Carpenter. Under Silas’s tutelage, she became an expert mechanic, and piloted robot fighters in the gladiatorial spectacle known as WarDome.

In truth, Eve is an android replica created in the image of Ana Monrova, youngest daughter of Nicholas Monrova, director of the Gnosis Laboratories megacorporation. After Silas’s abduction, Eve traveled from Dregs to the mainland to rescue the man she believed was her grandfather, eventually leading to a deadly confrontation in Babel, former capital of the fallen GnosisLabs.

In the heart of Babel, Eve discovered that her entire life was a lie.

Lemon Fresh—Eve’s former best friend. Lemon was found outside a Los Diablos tavern, and named for the laundry detergent box she was dumped in.

She accompanied Eve on her adventures across the ruins of the Yousay, and was captured aboard a living construct known as a kraken, created by BioMaas Incorporated. Though she eventually escaped and accompanied Eve to Babel, the pair parted on uncertain terms when Eve’s origins came to light.

Lemon is a deviate, aka abnorm or trashbreed, possessed of the ability to overload electronics with the power of her mind.

Ezekiel—one of thirteen lifelikes created by Gnosis Laboratories. Like all members of the 100-Series, Ezekiel is far faster and stronger than a regular human, but like most of the 100-Series, his emotional maturity can border on childlike.

Ezekiel was the only lifelike who didn’t join the revolt that destroyed Nicholas Monrova and his empire. As punishment, his siblings bolted a metal coin slot into his chest, to remind him of his allegiance to his human masters.

Ezekiel was Ana Monrova’s lover, and also had a romantic relationship with Eve. When he learned the truth of Eve’s past, he offered to stay in Babel with her, but the newly awakened lifelike sent him away.

Cricket—a logika created by Silas Carpenter, Cricket was Eve’s constant companion and robotic conscience. During the climactic battle inside Babel Tower, Cricket’s body was destroyed by the lifelike Faith.

His persona was transplanted into a huge mechanical war machine called the Quixote by Silas Carpenter. Compelled to obey the First Law of Robotics, Cricket was forced to leave Eve behind and take Lemon to safety when it became apparent the radiation inside Babel would kill her.

Nicholas Monrova—CEO of GnosisLabs. Nicholas was a visionary who believed the fusion of human and machine was the next logical step in humanity’s evolution. To this end, he initiated the lifelike program, attempting to create a better, smarter, stronger version of his own species.

After a betrayal within Gnosis and an attempt on his life, he masterminded Libertas—a nanovirus that could erase the Three Laws in any machine’s core code. To safeguard his stewardship of the corporation, he infected the lifelike Gabriel with Libertas, and commanded him to murder the other members of the Gnosis board.

Nicholas was killed, along with most of his family, in the subsequent lifelike revolt.

Ana Monrova—youngest daughter of Nicholas. Ana fell in love with Ezekiel against her parents’ wishes, and was left in a vegetative coma after an attempt on her father’s life. Unable to deal with the loss of his favored child, Monrova created Eve to replace her. However, Ana’s body was taken from Babel Tower to an undisclosed GnosisLabs holding, her vitals maintained by life support.

Ana is the only member of the Monrova line to survive the lifelike revolt.

Her current whereabouts are unknown.

Grace—a lifelike. Grace served as Nicholas Monrova’s majordomo, and was in love with the lifelike Gabriel, though they kept their relationship secret. Grace was killed in the assassination attempt that injured Ana.

Gabriel—the first of the 100-Series, driven to madness by the loss of his beloved Grace. After Nicholas Monrova deleted the Three Laws from Gabriel’s personality via the Libertas nanovirus, Gabriel infected his fellow lifelikes and led the revolt against his maker. He shot and killed Monrova; his wife, Alexis; and Monrova’s only son, Alex.

Gabriel wishes to resurrect Grace, but the secrets to doing so are locked within the GnosisLabs supercomputer, Myriad.

Faith—a lifelike, and Ana Monrova’s former confidante. Faith was the third lifelike to join Gabriel’s rebellion, and is one of the five lifelikes directly responsible for the execution of the Monrova family. She shot and killed Ana’s sister Olivia.

Faith remained with Gabriel in the ruins of Babel, even though most of the 100-Series abandoned the Gnosis capital after the revolt.

Silas Carpenter—a genius neuroscientist, and former head of Research and Development for GnosisLabs. After the assassination attempt on Nicholas Monrova, Silas created a new lifelike replica of Monrova’s injured daughter, and assisted Monrova in transplanting Ana’s personality into it.

After the lifelike revolt, he installed cybernetics in “Ana,” and gave her false memories that convinced her she was human. He renamed the lifelike “Eve” and took her to Dregs, raising her as his granddaughter.

He was captured by Faith, and eventually killed by Gabriel.

Preacher—a cybernetically enhanced bounty hunter in the employ of the megacorporation Daedalus Technologies.

Believing Eve had the ability to destroy electronics with her mind, Daedalus feared she may be recruited by their rivals, BioMaas Incorporated, and tasked Preacher with Eve’s capture. Preacher tracked Eve across the Yousay, eventually cornering her outside Babel.

He was blown apart by Kaiser.

Kaiser—Eve’s blitzhund, and one of her former protectors.

Kaiser was a cyborg: part Rottweiler, part armored killing machine. Like all blitzhunds, he was capable of tracking human subjects over a thousand kilometers with one sample of DNA. He destroyed himself in battle with Preacher to protect Eve.

Uriel—one of the five lifelikes responsible for the execution of the Monrova family, and the first to side with Gabriel. He shot and killed Ana’s sister Tania.

Since the revolt, Uriel has parted ways with Gabriel under a cloud of animosity, believing Gabriel’s love for Grace is an all-too-human frailty.

Myriad—the GnosisLabs supercomputer. Though it manifests as a holographic angel, Myriad is actually housed inside an armored shell at the heart of Babel Tower. Its chamber is capable of withstanding a nuclear assault, and is kept locked by a four-stage security sequence. Though two of those locks have now been broken, the third and fourth can only be opened by someone possessing Monrova DNA and brainwave patterns.

Myriad is the keeper of all of Nicholas Monrova’s knowledge, including the method to create more lifelikes and the secrets of the Libertas nanovirus.

BioMaas Incorporated—one of the two most powerful CorpStates in the Yousay. BioMaas is a company devoted to genetic modification and manipulation, gene-splicing and biotech. Their company motto is “Sustainable Growth,” and they really mean it—BioMaas tech isn’t built. It’s grown.

Daedalus Technologies—the second CorpState vying for control of the Yousay. Daedalus made their fortune through the development of solar power technology, though they have since diversified into cybernetics and military hardware.

The Brotherhood—a religious cult that preaches against the evils of biomodification and genetic tampering, devoted to the extermination of deviates.

The Three Laws of Robotics

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

YOUR BODY IS NOT YOUR OWN.

2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

YOUR MIND IS NOT YOUR OWN.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

YOUR LIFE IS NOT YOUR OWN.

automata [au-toh-MAH-tuh]

noun

A machine with no intelligence of its own, operating on preprogrammed lines.

machina [mah-KEE-nuh]

noun

A machine that requires a human operator to function.

logika [loh-JEE-kuh]

noun

A machine with its own onboard intelligence, capable of independent action.

2.0
REUNION

Almost everybody called her Eve.

At first glance, you might’ve mistaken her for human. She wouldn’t have liked that much. Standing in a dead garden atop a hollow tower, she was just a silhouette against the scorching light. She was tall, a little gangly, boots too big and cargos too tight. Sun-bleached blond hair was undercut into a bloodstained fauxhawk. One eye was missing, the socket bruised from where she’d torn it free. She looked close to seventeen years old, but that was a lie. Just like everything around her.

“Sister.”

She turned from the window, saw two figures behind her. The first was tall, blond, irises like green glass. A second stood beside him, dark hair as short as her fuse, close enough to the first to almost touch him.

Even wounded as they were, the pair were beautiful. Their maker had seen to that. But Eve knew there was something wrong with each of them—Gabriel with his broken heart, and Faith with her broken conscience. Like characters from some old 20C fairy tale, off to see the wizard to fix their missing pieces. Except their wizard, their maker, their father, was dead. And no one could fix any of them now.

So there Eve stood, in the dead wizard’s tower. Where the ones she’d called friends had fought to save her, where she’d felt her heart splinter inside her, where she’d awoken from a dead man’s dream to discover what she finally, truly was.

Life. Like.

“What is it, Gabriel?” she asked.

Anger glittered in those glass-green eyes as he replied.

“Our brother and sisters have accepted your invitation.”

PART 1

2.1
SPLITSVILLE

“Are these people defective?”

Lemon Fresh winced as another explosion burst against their hull. The world shook and her brainmeats ached and she was beginning to wonder if getting up this morning had been such a fizzy idea. The heavy armor they were encased in held fast, but the boom was still deafening, echoing around her skull. She could barely hear Ezekiel’s shout from the driver’s seat below.

“Their rockets seem to be working just fine!”

Lemon pulled her helmet down harder, yelling over the ’splodies. “Dimples, when you convinced me to jack this thing, it was on the understanding that nobody’d be stupid enough to pick a fight with a tank!”

“I didn’t think anyone was!”

Another explosion burst against their roof, and Lemon held on to her gunner’s seat for dear life. “Okay, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but—”

“Look, if you’re that worried, you could always shoot them back!”

“I’m fifteen years old! I dunno how to shoot with a t—”

Another explosion cut Lemon’s sentence off, but from the swearing she heard down in the driver’s cabin, she was pretty sure Zeke got the gist. She looked into the vidscreens at her gunner’s controls, heart sinking as she noticed their hull was now on fire, that another rocket team had joined the first in trying to murderize them, and finally decided that, yeah, crawling out of bed today?

Really bad move.

“We’re allllll gonna die,” she muttered.

It’d seemed like a pretty sensible plan at the time, too …

They’d motored from Babel Tower less than five hours ago, and talking true, Lemon was still trying to wrap her head around it all. The throwdown with Gabriel and his lifelikes. The blood on the chrome. The murder of Silas Carpenter. The look in Eve’s eyes as the bullet wounds in her chest slowly knitted closed.

“What’s happening to me?”

Lemon had thought of Silas as her own grandpa, and the memory of his death was a fresh, hard kick to her chest. But right on top of Mister C’s murder had come the revelation that the girl Lemon had known for two years, the girl she thought of as her bestest … that girl was a robot. Eve wasn’t Eve at all. She was a lifelike, modeled after Nicholas Monrova’s lost and youngest daughter, Ana.

True cert, and strange as it was, Lemon couldn’t give a faulty credstik if her bestest was a bot. Growing up in Dregs, you learned to stick by your friends no matter what. Rule Number One in the Scrap:

Stronger together, together forever.

But Eve …

After all the years and all the spills and all the hurt …

… She still sent me away.

Lemon hadn’t wanted to bail. But her radiation gear had been wrecked in the tussle, and the reactor in Babel Tower was still leaking—she didn’t know how many rads she’d sucked up already. And whatever her feelings on the topic, Cricket wouldn’t let her stick around anyways. The First Law of Robotics just wouldn’t allow him to. So, with tears streaming down her face, she and Cricket and Ezekiel had slunk away from the heart of that hollow tower, away from the Myriad supercomputer that contained every one of Nicholas Monrova’s dirty secrets, and away from the girl who was nothing close to a girl at all.

They’d had their pick of vehicles in the GnosisLabs armory. In the end, Ezekiel had settled on a grav-tank, big and bulky and bristling with guns. It’d be slower going, but the tank’s cushion of magnetized particles would handle any terrain, and its rad-proof armor plating would offer better protection out on the Glass. Heart like lead in her chest, Lemon had taken one last look at the tower where her bestest had decided to remain. And then, bad as it hurt, they’d left her behind.

Ezekiel drove, and Lemon sulked, the kilometers grinding away in silence. They’d avoided the broken freeway where they’d fought the Preacher, heading west toward the setting sun. Lemon fought her sobs the whole way. Cricket plodded behind, looking back over his shoulder as Babel grew smaller and smaller still.

Before he’d died, Grandpa had transferred the little bot’s consciousness into the Quixote—GnosisLabs’ champion logika gladiator. The little fug stood seven meters tall now, wrecking-ball fists and urban-camo paintjob, optics burning like little blue suns. He might look like a faceful of hardcore, but Mister C had created Cricket to protect Eve, and Lemon knew the big bot was feeling just as sore as she was about leaving her behind.

It was close to sundown, and they had been making their way through a series of deep sandstone gullies when the ambush hit. Lemon had been sitting in the gunner’s seat, sucking down some bottled water and fighting a growing nausea in her belly. She’d heard a faint whistle, a shuddering boom, and half the gully wall just collapsed right on top of them. As the dust cleared, Lemon had realized the front half of their tank was buried under rubble. If she and Zeke were riding something with a little less armor, they’d already be fertilizer.

Cricket had disappeared under an avalanche of broken sandstone. Ezekiel had gunned the engine hard, but the tank didn’t have the grunt to drag itself free of all that weight. That’s when the first rocket streaked down from above, lighting up their hull with a blossom of bright, crackling flame.

“We’re allllll gonna die,” Lemon muttered.

Dusk was deepening, but the tank’s cams were thermographic. Lem scoped two rocket emplacements on the gully walls above. They were protected by sandbags, crewed by three men apiece. The scavvers were wearing piecemeal armor and muddy gold tees underneath, painted with what looked like an oldskool knight’s helmet.

Lem had to give them points for the color-coordinated outfits, but she wondered if these goons actually had any brainmeats inside their skulls. She watched through her gunner cams as the rubble behind them stirred, and a titanic fist punched up from beneath. Servos and engines whining, Cricket pushed himself free, shook himself like a dog to rid himself of the grit and dust.

“THAT TICKLED,” the big bot declared.

“Cricket!” Ezekiel shouted. “Are you okay?”

A deep electronic reply rang out over the radio as another round exploded. “NOTHING A NICE BACK RUB WOULDN’T FIX. IF YOU’RE NOT TOO BUSY?”

“Lemon can’t operate the tank turret. Take care of those rocketeers!”

“… YOU MEAN SHOOT THEM?”

“No, I mean ask them to dinner!” Ezekiel shouted. “Of course shoot them!”

“MISS FRESH,” came the big bot’s reply. “WOULD YOU BE SO KIND AS TO REMIND THIS IDIOT MURDERBOT ABOUT THE FIRST LAW OF ROBOTICS?”

Lemon sighed, spoke by rote. “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a hu—”

Another explosion rocked the tank, and Ezekiel started cursing with way more chops than Lem would’ve given him credit for. Thing was, even though Crick couldn’t lay any kind of hurting on a human, picking a fight with a grav-tank and seventy tons of armored robot gladiator didn’t seem like the most sensible plan. So why had these scavvers decided to—

“… Oh,” Lemon said, blinking at her rear cams.

“Oh what?” Ezekiel called, still gunning the engine.

“Oh, sh—”

Another blast rocked the tank, and Lemon fell clean off her seat, splitting her brow on the controls. Pulling her helmet back on, she hollered into her comms.

“Crick, check our six, we got capital T!”

The big bot turned to face their new pack of trouble. Stomping along the gully behind them came the ugliest machina Lem had ever seen. On its four legs, it only stood three meters high, but it was at least seven long. Cobbled together from the remains of half a dozen other machina, it had a serpentine neck, a couple of old earthmover scoops fashioned into snaggle-toothed jaws. Two floodlights atop the scoops gave the impression of large, glowing eyes.

The machina reminded her of a vid Eve had shown her once. These big lizard things that had romped the planet before humans came along to wreck everything.

Dinosomethings?

Anyway. It was big. And rusty. And stomping right at Cricket.

Its pilot was mostly hidden inside a heavy safety cage, but Lemon could see he was dolled up like his rocket-friends, muddy gold colors and all. His voice was thick and rough, crackling over the machina’s PA system.

“Dunghill knave! I challenge thee!”

Cricket tilted his head. “… UM, WHAT?”

The machina pilot opened up with a pair of autoguns, the shells shattering on Cricket’s hull. The bot raised his hands to shield his optics, sparks and tracer rounds lit up the dusk. Deciding the machina was a bigger threat to Lemon than the rocket crews, Crick charged headlong into its line of fire.

“YOU WAITING FOR AN INVITATION, STUMPY?” he yelled.

Ezekiel spat a final curse and thumped a fist on the console. Sliding out of his chair, he squeezed past Lemon and up into the turret. Zeke was tall, broad-shouldered. Olive skin and short dark curls and bright blue eyes. His right arm was missing below the elbow, but the injury came nowhere close to ruining the picture. Ratcheting the turret hatch open with his good hand, he shot Lemon a wink.

“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.

Hopping down to the dirt, she made her way around to peer up into Cricket’s face. His new head was styled like an oldskool warrior helmet from the history virtch—a smooth faceplate, square jaw and heavy brow, his once-bright-blue optics now dark.

“Crick?”

Lemon heard a buzzing in her ear, swiped at a fat blowfly circling her head.

“You hear me, you little fug?”

The bot made no reply. The girl sighed, rubbing at her stomach. She’d tossed up everything she’d eaten, but she still felt puketastic, her skin damp with sweat. She took an experimental swig of water, swallowed with a wince. She’d never heard of a can of Neo-Meat™ going bad before—the stuff was more preservatives than actual food. Maybe it’d been locked inside the tank too long?

The blowfly returned, swooping in lazy circles about her head. She took another half-hearted swipe, but as it buzzed up into her face, Lemon realized it wasn’t a fly at all. It was a fat, angry-looking bumblebee.

She’d only ever seen pics of them on the history virtch—she’d always been taught they’d died out before the Quake, so it was true strange to see one all the way out here in the wastes. Its little furry bod was banded yellow and black, its sting gleaming. She took a serious swing, almost knocking it out of the air. Buzzing angrily, the bumblebee beat a hasty retreat back over the gully walls.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Lemon growled after it. “Tell your friends, friendo.”

She wondered where Ezekiel was, how close he’d got to Babel. Realizing she could just ask, she climbed up onto the tank, reached inside for her helmet. As she pulled it onto her head, she noticed the bumblebee had returned, sitting on the hatch beside her hand. It flapped its wings, gave a furious little buzz.

“Back for more, eh?” she scowled. “You have chosen poorly, little one.”

Lemon slowly pulled off her boot, raised it high above her head … just as another bumblebee buzzed out of the sky and landed right on the tip of her nose.

“Oh, craaaap,” she whispered.

Lemon held her breath, staring cross-eyed into the little bugger’s beady black stare.

“… You know, when I said tell your friends, I was just being sassy.”

She heard the droning of lazy wings in the sunshine heat. She didn’t dare move, eyes fixed on the nose invader’s pointy butt parts. But as the buzzing grew louder, she glanced about, careful not to move her head. She saw a dozen more bumblebees on the gully walls, doing lazy circle-work in the air around her. Moving slow, she tapped the transmit button on her helmet’s commset.

“Um … Dimples?” she asked. “Dimples, do you read me?”

She heard a short crackle of static, Ezekiel’s faint reply.

“Lemon? Is everything okay?”

“Um, that depends. What do bees eat?”

“… What?”

“Seriously, what do they eat?”

“Well, I’m not an expert or anything. But I think they probably eat honey?”

“… Not people?”

“Nnnno. I think it’s safe to assume they don’t eat people. Dare I ask why?”

The air was full of bees now, a swaying, rolling swarm, filling the air with a droning hum. Lemon heard soft, scuffing footsteps above, slowly craned her neck to look at the gully walls overhead. Lem saw a strange woman standing on the ridge above, looking down at her.

She was tall, pretty, deep brown skin. Her hair was woven into long, sharp dreadlocks. Her eyes were a strange, glittering gold—Lemon figured they must be cybernetics of some sort. She was wearing a long desert-red cloak despite the heat, a strange rifle slung on her back. Under the cloak, she wore a suit of what might’ve been black rubber, dusty from a long road, skintight and molded with strange bumps and ridges over some serious curves.

I’ve seen that kind of outfit before …

Lemon was motionless, bee still perched on her nose, eyes fixed on the stranger above. The woman peeled aside the high collar of her suit, exposing the throat beneath. Lemon’s belly ran cold as she realized that the woman’s skin was pocked with dozens, maybe hundreds, of tiny hexagonal holes.

Honeycombed …

More bumblebees were crawling through her hair, along her face, across her smile. And as Lemon watched, dozens more swarmed out from beneath the strange woman’s skin.

“Oh, spank my spankables,” the girl whispered.

The woman looked down at Lemon, golden eyes gleaming.

“Lemonfresh,” she said. “We have been hunting her.”

Endless dunes and jagged rocks and dust as far as the eye could see. Ezekiel cut through the wasteland with a long loping stride, the kilometers disappearing beneath his boots. He was making good time; he figured he’d be back at Babel by sundown. He could see the tower ahead, rising up from the horizon in its double-helix spiral, his shadow stretching toward it.

He didn’t know what he’d do when he got there, truth told. If Gabriel and Faith had recovered from the beatings they’d taken, if Eve …

Eve.

He didn’t really know what to do about her, either. He’d not talked to Lemon about their last exchange right before he left the tower. The veiled threats the newly awakened lifelike had made. The dangerous gleam in Eve’s eye as she’d spoken those final, fateful words.

“Next time we meet? I don’t think it’s going to turn out the way you want it to.”

He wasn’t quite sure what she’d meant. Eve was furious, he knew that. About the lies Silas and Nicholas Monrova had heaped on her. The false life they’d built her. She had a right to be angry. With them. With him. But Lemon had been correct—even if he did love Ana, a part of him had loved Eve, too.

Is that why you’re headed back there?

So soon after leaving?

It was more than the fact she was Ana’s doppelgänger. Eve had a strength and determination he’d never seen in the original Ana. A fire and resourcefulness, born from years of clawing out a living in a trashpit like Dregs. But if Eve threw her lot in with Gabriel, or worse, their brother Uriel, if she used that fire to aid his siblings in ridding the world of the dinosaur that had been humanity …

What could she become?

“Um … Dimples? Dimples, do you read me?”

The lifelike slowed his pace, tapped the receiver on his headset.

“Lemon?” he asked. “Is everything okay?”

“Um, that depends. What do bees eat?”

“… What?”

“Seriously, what do they eat?”

Ezekiel rubbed his chin, wondering what the girl was on about. “Well, I’m not an expert or anything. But I think they probably eat honey?”

“… Not people?”

“Nnnno. I think it’s safe to assume they don’t eat people. Dare I ask why?”

“Oh, spank my spankables …”

“Freckles? Are y—”

“Dimples, help!” came the crackling plea. “There’s a cr—”

A squeal of static washed over the headset, and the transmission died.

“Lemon?” Ezekiel tapped the headset. “Lemon, can you hear me?”

Nothing. No reply at all. But he’d caught the fear and adrenaline in her voice, and with a curse, he turned and began running back the way he’d come. No easy loping stride this time, but a furious, flat-out sprint. His teeth were gritted, his arm pumping, boots pounding the dirt. He yelled her name into the commset, got no answer, the fear in his belly blooming into a freezing panic.

He’d told her to stay in the tank. She should’ve been safe there. What on earth could’ve gotten to her inside a shell of rad-proofed armor plating?

Unless she got out …

You never should have left her.

He ran. Fast as he could. He’d never pushed himself as hard in his short life, his heart thundering, veins pumping acid. He was the peak of physical perfection, generated in the GnosisLabs to be more than human. But in the end, he was only bone and muscle, blood and meat. Even pounding the dust as quick as he could, hours had passed by the time he arrived, the sun burning high in the sky, his skin and clothes drenched with sweat. The gully was deathly silent. Like a tomb. Like that cell in Babel in the moments after he and his siblings had murdered the Monrova family. As he’d raised the gun to Eve’s head and whispered those two meaningless words.

“I’m sorry.”

The tank was exactly where he’d left it. But the hatch was open, and worse, there was no sign of Lemon or Cricket. Ezekiel drew his heavy pistol, crept through the rocks, listening intently with his enhanced senses and hearing nothing. He leapt up onto the tank, peered inside, saw it had been partially stripped—the computer gear, the cannon ammunition, the radio equipment was all gone. They’d tried to bust into the weapons locker, but hadn’t been able to burn through the metal.

In front of the scorched cabinet door sat Lemon’s helmet, spattered with vomit and a few drops of blood. And beside it lay a couple of squashed bugs.

No … not bugs …

Bees …?

He knelt by the little corpses, picked them both up and cradled them in his palm. His eyes were good enough to count the freckles on a girl’s face in a fraction of a second, track a moth in a midnight sky. Squinting at the insects, he saw the pair were twins—not just similar, but identical, down to the number of hairs on their bodies, the facets of their eyes. And turning them over on his palm, the lifelike saw the stripes on their abdomens were arranged in a tiny pattern.

A bar code.

The lifelike closed his fist.

“BioMaas,” he whispered.