Prophet's Journey, page 24
part #1 of Prophet of the Badlands Series
Althea looked at her like she called the sky brown. “I don’t have balls. I’m a girl.”
Teal laughed herself to tears. “Holy crap you’re adorable.”
“Why do you keep saying stuff that doesn’t mean what you say?”
“People just do that.”
Althea stuck out her tongue. “There. See. You just called yourself people. You’re people.”
Teal stared at her for a long moment, then looked down. “My name’s really Ash. Didn’t want to use it when I started doing merc work. Pretty stupid huh? Tried to think of a fake name on the spot and I just chose the color of my hair.”
“That’s not as stupid as letting people kidnap you over and over and not standing up for yourself.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Scrags are scared of mystics. I didn’t want them to burn me alive.”
“But you could have forced them not to burn you alive.”
“Yeah. I know that now.”
“And how the heck do you know what balls are at your age?”
“I used to get kidnapped by raiders all the time.”
Teal gasped, staring at her. “You poor…”
“No.” Althea shook her head. “Whenever they get hit there, they yell ‘my balls!’”
“Oh.” The woman cackled. “Okay.”
Althea shrugged. “They like stabbing each other there, too. I’ve had to put them back on people sometimes.”
The man and the former-raider both groaned.
“That’s far too much information,” said Teal. “Wow. I thought I’d seen some shit as a merc. You poor kid.”
Althea scooted closer and cuddled up beside her.
Teal gave her a ‘must you’ stare, but didn’t protest. She glanced at the others. “So how did you wind up on the cross? You’re one of them.”
The woman shrugged, not bothering to sit up. “We raided a settlement a long way off in the south. I kicked in a door, found this chick with two tiny kids. I let her and the kids slip away. Someone saw me do it, and Puma wanted me executed as an example of disobedience.”
“What’s your name?” asked Althea.
“Yaz.”
“And him?” asked Teal.
“Cobb,” said the man. “I do courier runs between settlements. Tried to take a shortcut, figuring I’d play chicken with the crazy robots. Didn’t expect to run into a pack of raiders this close to Detroit. This is not the place anyone with sense goes.”
“Yet here we all are,” said Yaz.
“How’d you end up here, girlie?” asked Cobb.
“If you’re not talking to the eleven-year-old, I’m going to break your face.” Teal examined her fingernails.
“My name isn’t ‘girlie’ either. It’s Althea.”
Cobb sucked air through his teeth. “Hey, no need for violence. Sorry. How’d you end up here, ma’am?”
“Better.” Teal lowered her hand to her lap. “Our ship crashed.”
“Oh. Yeah, that happens all the time.” Cobb yawned.
“If you’re like a machine, how’d you get born?” asked Yaz.
“Same way a reassembler makes a damned cheeseburger,” muttered Teal.
“Huh?” asked Yaz. “What’s a cheeseburger?”
Althea smiled up at Teal. “This is more like what it would be to have a mom.”
“If you try to hug me, I will hogtie you again.”
Althea stuck her tongue out.
Teal chuckled.
“Wait, again?” asked Cobb. “You tied that kid up?”
“It’s complicated.” Teal smirked. “She’s a real terror when she’s had too much caffeine.”
“What’s caffeine?” Althea peered up at her.
“You abducted this girl?” asked Yaz.
“She’s the Prophet. Doesn’t everyone?” Teal grinned.
“That’s not funny.” Althea sighed.
“I wouldn’t technically call it abducting her. More like relocating her against her will.” Teal waved her hand about. “The end result would’ve been better off for her than living out here.”
“No it wouldn’t.” Althea shook her head. “The bad city people would put me in a cage and done stuff to me trying to figure out how I work. I want my family.”
Teal kicked at the floor, muttering to herself for a few seconds. “That’s not what they said they’d do, but… corporations lie all the time.”
“I don’t like corp’rations.” Althea yawned, snuggled against her, and closed her eyes.
“Must you?” asked Teal.
“Yes,” said Althea, as she drifted off to sleep. “I must.”
25
Contaminants
Brief flashes of memory flickered in Althea’s consciousness in the few seconds before she woke up. Images appeared of strange places with strange things. She recognized a sofa, though it didn’t look like any furniture she could remember seeing. Glowing stuff, little robots, and lots of silver metal blurred in a haze surrounding her. She caught a glimpse of a window beyond which stretched a field of reddish dirt. Mostly, the visions focused on a man and a woman who kept smiling at her.
Althea opened her eyes, staring down the length of Teal’s leg at the woman’s boot.
“You drooled on me.”
With a grunt, Althea pushed herself up to sit and wiped her bleary eyes. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
Two yawns later, Althea folded the blanket, set it aside, then stumbled across the kitchen to a small bathroom. A few seconds after she sat on the toilet, it occurred to her that the weird dream must have been the clairvoy ants telling her about Teal. The people must be her parents, and the odd places, the modern city. She looked up from the floor, gazing out the doorway at the blue-green haired woman. Maybe because her body was metal and plastic and had no aura, it could soak up the emotional energy from her parents. They had to know they’d adopted a synthetic, and still loved her like any other child.
Althea smiled at that, and let her head hang while she finished unloading her overfull bladder.
Yaz hurried over and stood by the door, staring at her as if that would make her go faster. As soon as Althea got up, the former raider ran in.
Cobb pulled dried meat and bread out of a sack, offering some to Althea when she returned to sit between him and Teal. She took it, thanked him, and proceeded to eat. He offered some to Teal, who declined.
“It’s okay. I’m special.”
Cobb shrugged in an ‘okay, suit yourself’ sort of way. “Is it true what Puma said? Are you really one of them?”
“No. If I was part of the CRP, I’d have already killed all three of you.”
Althea looked up, paused in mid-chew.
“I’m not, and I won’t.”
She resumed eating.
Teal handed her the canteen. “Push the green button at the top to make the water come out. Don’t push the orange one or it’ll overheat and go off like a nuke, kill everything within five miles.”
Althea dropped the canteen.
“You’re not much for jokes, are you, kid?” Teal laughed. “Orange one just makes hot water.”
“I like jokes, but you haven’t told any yet.” Althea stared under flat eyebrows at her.
“You are a salty little thing.” Teal shook her head, smiling
Althea examined the genesis canteen, locating two rubberized buttons at the point where the little neck on top met the rounded bottle. Pushing the green one activated the spurt of water. The slow stream annoyed her, but she drank quite a bit to chase the dryness out of her mouth from the jerky and bread.
After everyone finished eating, Teal headed to the door at the end of the restaurant room and listened. Evidently hearing nothing alarming, she leaned out and looked both ways.
“Clear.”
They emerged from the building in a single file line, Althea right behind Teal, with Yaz next and Cobb at the back. As before, Teal didn’t appear the least bit hesitant about where to go, not once looking at the sky to measure the sun or seeming confused at direction. She did, however, pause by the edges of ruined buildings to look around before starting off across any significantly large stretch of open ground.
Weak sunlight from an overcast sky made the day chilly and the wind cold. Althea somewhat remembered the names of the months that the learning machine tried to teach her, but forgot which one happened now. ‘Spring’ sounded right for the time, but none of the months had that name. The farm where Karina worked started planting new crops a week or two ago, which kept everyone working longer hours than usual. The Zero police had brought technology to help the farm grow even better, stuff they called chemicals, some small robots that helped with physical work like digging, and a couple tiny orbs that flew around checking on the plants and looking for problems. Unlike a person, those things watched the farm without ever needing to stop and sleep.
She daydreamed about being home, barely able to contain her eagerness to be with her family again. The quiet electric whine of the small farm orbs seemed to drift out of her head into reality. Althea tried to stop thinking about them, but the noise continued.
“Teal?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you hear that?”
“What?”
“The noise like the flying ball robots make.”
Teal stopped and looked back at her, worried. “You can hear that, too?”
“Yeah.”
“Crap. That means one’s close.” She looked around at the sky for a second, drew her gun, and shot a blue laser into the air.
Althea whirled to look, gasping at the sight of a flaming object careening out of the sky ahead of a smoke trail. Another flying wing machine like the one Paama knocked down with a rock careened into the ground. This one, however, wouldn’t need to be finished off with spears. It exploded on impact.
“We have to hide. Now!” whisper-shouted Teal. “Go!”
She ran.
Althea sprinted after her. Yaz almost managed to keep up with them, but Cobb fell behind.
Bright green blobs whizzed past them, burning holes in buildings or leaving glowing orange spots on the ground. Teal hurdled a dead car, another plasma glob missing her by a few feet, and dashed around the corner of a building. Althea also leapt the car, for the first time in her life unable to overrun someone when she really wanted to go fast.
Teal skidded to a stop beside a crumbling wall and looked back. “Where’s Cobb?”
“Right behind me,” shouted Yaz.
“Shit. He can’t keep up.” Teal pulled her gun and jumped through a hole that used to be a window. “Get in here and get down.”
Althea leapt after her, landing in a debris-strewn lot surrounded by the remains of walls. The tallest part only came up to her chin. Yaz dove in as a plasma blob hit the window frame above her. She landed flat on her chest and slid across the dirt. Another two glowing green bolts hit the road outside. Cobb screamed—but appeared alive and unhurt a second later, running for the opening.
Teal leaned around the wall, firing at something in the distance.
Cobb dove in the window and crawled to the west wall, huddling against the debris. Althea threw herself flat to the ground by the highest section of the north wall. Yaz ran to the southwest corner and crouched behind a pile of head-sized bricks.
Plasma globs flew over the wall where Teal had taken up a position. Some hit the concrete, leaving melt holes all the way through, each about the diameter of Althea’s thigh. She stared at the glowing tunnels in horror, finally understanding what had left the ghastly wounds in people she’d seen.
Something exploded in the distance. A deep toneless voice said, “Error. System failure.”
Teal fired twice rapidly, then ducked. Green energy hit the windowsill, throwing a splash of molten rock into the air. A few small bits landed on Yaz twenty feet away, making her shriek and swat at her legs. Crunching came from the west.
Althea looked up the same instant a seven-foot-tall silver machine man walked through a knee-high section of wall right near her. For an instant, she stared at her distorted reflection in its mirror-polished thigh plate. It pointed a gleaming chrome-finished rifle at Teal. Cobb lunged to his feet, swinging a length of rebar with a concrete hunk on one end like a club into the CRP robot’s somewhat-human face. Cobb’s attack barely scratched the machine, but he hit it hard enough that its plasma bolt went high, passing over Teal’s head.
He swung again, aiming for the rifle. The CRP walker caught the rebar with its left hand, stalling the swing cold. Teal shot it, surgically nailing it in the eyes with a series of rapid pulses. Its head burst into flames, the body lapsing into a shuddering, jerky fit. Rigid, it fell over backward like a plank, crushing another section of concrete. Cobb grabbed the rifle, tugging on it, but couldn’t budge it from the dead machine’s grip.
A plasma glob whizzed over the shallow wall, nailing him in the head with a splat like a watermelon dropped off the roof of a building. Only a smoking stump of neck remained, the remainder of his skull evaporated in a smoky red mist. Althea screamed as the icy claw of a departing life scratched at her heart.
Teal sprinted in a blur to the downed robot. She shot the hand with her laser pistol, melting the thumb off, then wrenched the plasma rifle from its grip, breaking one of the remaining metal fingers. Another CRP robot appeared by the window at the east wall where she’d been shooting from. She pivoted, firing two green globs into its chest. They melted deep holes ringed with glowing molten metal in the armor plating, exposing its insides. Sparks flew like a hose from the damage. The machine fell out of sight, then exploded with a near blinding flash and deep concussive whump that knocked dust off the walls into a fleeting ghost image of the ruins before it dissipated on the breeze.
Althea burst into tears, staring at Cobb’s remains. She crawled to him, grabbed his hand, and attempted to link to his life essence… but felt no connection. Wailing, she tried to call on the same power she’d somehow tapped for Shepherd, though couldn’t manage to make anything happen.
“We gotta run!” shouted Yaz.
“No! Stay down!” Teal popped up over the wall, fired three plasma blasts, then ducked an instant before five came flying back over her, striking the dirt in the middle of the ruin and kicking up plumes of grey silt.
Another blinding flash went off in the distance, the explosion far enough away it didn’t seem all that loud.
Teal popped up again, fired, and ducked. Another explosion went off. “I got this. Stay down. Kid, can you shoot?”
“No,” sobbed Althea. “Cobb’s dead.”
“What the hell does that have to do with you shooting?” She popped up again, fired once, yelled, “Shit,” and hit the deck, crawling to the right.
A storm of green plasma melted a doorway-sized hole in the wall where she’d been.
Yaz screamed, leapt to her feet, and ran, jumping the south wall and taking off down the street.
“Stupid bitch,” muttered Teal.
A hissing whoosh went by, leaving a thin trail of smoke hanging in the air. A muted whump followed. Yaz let out a clipped shriek.
“No!” shouted Althea.
She jumped up, ran three steps, then ate dirt when Teal jumped on her an instant before a plasma bolt went over their heads.
“Stay down, kid!”
Althea clawed at the ground, trying to pull herself forward. “I gotta help her before she dies!”
Teal, still sitting on her, pivoted to the rear and fired over and over, ten, fifteen, twenty times. Multiple explosions went off in the distance. Another CRP walker burst through the east wall right in front of them. Althea screamed. Teal spun so fast her arms blurred. She fired a plasma bolt into its face, knocking the robot back a split second before it fired into the dirt two feet away from Althea’s leg.
After firing again into the walker-bot’s face, Teal grabbed Althea’s arm and hauled her upright. “We got a hole. Need to go now.”
“Don’t leave her!” shouted Althea, pulling at her. “Please!”
“You are gonna get us all killed.”
“She’s not dead! I didn’t feel her die! We gotta help her! It’s what people do!”
Teal ducked a plasma glob, then stood tall and fired once. A running CRP bot caught the bolt in the neck. Its head flew off amid a spray of molten metal, spinning into the air. The body kept on going until it crashed into a wall some forty feet away.
“Okay, fine. Go. If you die, then I’m off the hook for walking all the way across the effing Badlands.”
“You don’t really mean that.” Althea charged her muscles and leapt over the wall to the street, sprinting in the direction Yaz had gone.
The woman lay not far from the ruin where they’d taken cover, her left leg blown off at the thigh. Most of the limb lay a short distance away, still burning.
Teal ran out behind her, firing plasma off to the left at a shorter, but wider CRP robot that had tank treads instead of legs, its shoulders brimming with small cucumber-sized rockets. Althea didn’t pay attention to what exploded or whistled past her head. She ran to Yaz and grabbed her arm.
Before she could do anything, Teal grabbed them both and dragged them off the road into an alley between buildings. “Work here. I’ll cover you. Do it fast.” She rushed to the alley mouth aiming the plasma rifle around the corner. “And if you have any relationship with luck, we could really use some. This rifle only has six shots left.”
Althea grabbed Yaz by the arm, closed her eyes, and dove down the link to the woman’s life essence. First, she disabled the woman’s sense of pain despite her having fainted. The former raider’s blood-presence had already shrank enough to kill her, escaping out the huge blood tube in the leg, but she hadn’t yet lost her ghost. Growling from the strain, Althea tapped her desperation to prevent death. Threads of pain raked down her body like tiny, fiery claws. She clenched her jaw, pouring as much power as she could into the woman. The bone shape in the leg had burst into thousands of tiny fragments, muscles shredded to strips. She commanded them to regrow, the bone bits to reabsorb into the body. With little time to work, it would be faster—but more tiring—to simply grow new bone than sort out such a complicated puzzle.
