Didi and the Gunslinger Page 12

  The battle, that he could handle. Fighting, dying, killing others to fulfill his orders, all of that he understands. But this emotional turmoil he’s woken by allowing his damaged brain to function… this he isn’t sure he can handle. And yet, he has no choice. When he tries to bypass it now, it weakens him, makes him feel out of control and as though he can’t focus. And that he can’t allow.

  He will endure, as he has since his creation two centuries ago. He is a gunslinger and he will survive long enough to ensure the promise he made Emma will be completed.

  Wait. No. He shakes his head, one hand rising to rub at his metal face, a habit he would realize—were he aware he was doing it—he left behind when he lost his humanity. Not Emma. He doesn’t know an Emma. Didi Duke.

  His self-destruct ticks softly inside him. He needs to tell her when she wakes. They are running out of time and he fears he won’t be able to do as he’s promised with the little span he has left. Only twelve hours. He can’t let Emma down.

  Didi.

  What is happening to him? No time and no energy to uncover anything. He must focus. Carefully and with precise caution, he begins to shut down small pathways, one at a time, in an attempt to return to the calm of the gunslinger.

  While Trash Heaven flashes by and the girl next to him sleeps, his memory fills with the image of Emma laughing.

  ***

  Chapter Twenty One

  Didi wakes in the darkness, sitting upright so fast the world wobbles around her. She didn’t want to sleep, had planned to plot out her path to her father while the train hurried its way to the city. But, she obviously needed the rest.

  The gunslinger sits beside her, silent and staring straight ahead, his blue eyes pulsing only faintly. He must be resting, too and she can only hope he holds out for as long as she needs him. So far, despite some bumps and frustrations, he’s been there for her, she has to admit. He’s not Dad or anything, but she has little choice in the matter.

  Didi swings sideways, Pip beside her, waking more slowly as his beak yawns, red tongue visible when she lowers her goggles into place and looks out over the trash flying by. The glow of the city is usually so distant, like a sun trying to rise over the horizon, it’s always surprising to see it up close. She’s only ever been here in daylight though, so the sight of the giant, sprawling and filthy city in the glow of nighttime, multicolored lights from millions of windows and streets pulsing their light up into the polluted sky looks like a wonderland of brilliance instead of the dirty pile of reclaimed refuse she knows makes up Trash City.

  Maybe coming in at night is the best choice. She glances back at the resting gunslinger and winces. He’s fairly obvious, isn’t he, something she hasn’t thought through. Gunslingers are decommed and having one lumber around after her in broad daylight could be an issue.

  She giggles softly into her hands and turns back to the approaching city. What an understatement. Still, she’ll have to make do. And, if her desires and dreams go her way, her father will be rescued long before the sun comes up and makes her giant, silver companion even more obvious.

  Maybe she should feel guilty she plans to go against her promise to him the first chance she gets. The gunslinger might be forced to tell her the truth, but she’s under no such conditions. If the opportunity arises, she will turn herself and the chip over to the Underlord once her father is safe. She pats at the small pouch holding the charger for her protections and the golden chip, reassuring herself of its presence as much as securing her own courage. Dad has to come first and a blikey pox on the Galactic Conjunction.

  Pip’s words linger with her, though as they near the city’s edge. The fact Dad obviously wanted this hidden, had left it with Putter, of all people… and hadn’t told her a thing about it. She wipes at the corner of her eyes, forced to lift her goggles away as moisture collects. She’ll give him what for when she sees him again, for making her figure this out on her own instead of just telling her what’s what. But, until then, she’ll just smother the seed of hurt his distrust in her left behind.

  Dad had his reasons. And she’ll know every single one of them in detail before she forgives him. Or lets him forget what a massive mistake keeping her in the dark actually was.

  Pip clacks his beak together, fluffing his feathers. “Perhaps we should prepare to disembark,” he says. The silly bird is starting to sound like the gunslinger. She agrees with him, though, turns to prod the silver bulk behind her, but the cyborg is already powered up and looking at her.

  How long was he sitting there, staring? It’s creepy and yet stirs that same sense of safety she felt when he carried her away from danger. She’s not sure she likes it.

  The sky is lightening in the east when Didi turns back and, with a groan, she realizes her mistake. The time is earlier here, half way around the planet. What should still be night is now morning. Which means any chance she has of disguising the gunslinger in the dark is slipping away with the rising sun.

  She’ll just have to deal with it. The gunslinger sweeps to his feet, shoving aside the trash shelter he built them and, a moment later, as the tram shudders to a halt at the small station ahead, he lifts Didi into his arms and carries her free of the car, Pip flapping after them.

  She almost chastises him for not asking first, but lets it go. Didi would rather trust his instincts than her own from here on in, though the thought of the damaged gunslinger running this little show makes her uneasy. Still, if there’s danger or need to move quickly, she won’t fight him. As long as he leads her to her father.

  Didi settles on her feet, not bothering to activate her boots. This part of Trash City is flat, the ground leveled and compacted into some semblance of evenness. She weaves through the last piles of trash, past a pair of automechs stacking garbage from the tram, and out of the main yard.

  The road to the city is eerie, in her mind, the glow of the rising sun cutting through the lights she thought beautiful, casting the entire hulking mass before her in shadow. It looms like a dark blot in the near distance, as though the mouth to hell had opened and waits for her to enter.

  She shivers and hopes she’s just being melodramatic.

  Didi turns and looks back over her shoulder, winces at the sight of the tall, shining gunslinger who glows in the light of the rising sun. “We need to do something about how you look,” she says. Maybe some clothing to disguise his armor. A hat, perhaps, pulled low over his glowing blue eyes…?

  He looks down at her and the mental image she’s created of his shrouded form bursts like a bubble. “Agreed,” he says.

  Pip chitters on her shoulder. “A bit of an attention grabber, isn’t he?” The crow chuckles.

  “There should be a G.C. office near the tram exit.” The gunslinger doesn’t look at her again, just stares straight ahead, his stride matching hers. “We could go there and ask for assistance. Perhaps they would be willing to allow me a temporary revival in order to assist in the recovery of your father.”

  Didi can’t help her scowl, it feels like a natural expression these days. “No,” she says, waving off Pip who flaps his protest at her denial. “Not yet. I want to find Dad first. I need to know he’s safe before some stupid G.C. mechcops go in and put his life in danger.”

  The gunslinger doesn’t answer her, though his lack of argument makes her feel a little better. She’s about to lower her goggles to shield her eyes from the rising sun when a wave of shadow passes in front of her, flapping and cawing in the morning light.

  Before she can act, react, stop him, Pip rises from her shoulder and flies upward, answering the murder of crows flying past with calls of his own. Didi inhales sharply, heart tugging at him, pain twisting in her chest at his defection, but there is nothing she can do as Pip flies off and leaves her there with the gunslinger.

  “Blikey traitor of a corbie!” She stomps one boot, knee aching from the impact on the crushed metal roadway. “I don’t have time for this.” Tears sting her eyes, throat tight. The stupid, wretched, crust
y old creature. He’d have to fly off now and leave her, wouldn’t he, the farging snargle?

  “Will he return?” The gunslinger sounds sad himself.

  “No,” she snaps, stomping away. “He’s gone for good this time. Let him. I’m for Dad.”

  It’s a grief-stricken, furious moment before she realizes he hasn’t followed her. She spins and tosses her hands while the gunslinger looks up and off into the distance as though waiting for Pip to come back.

  “Just leave him,” she says, defeat making her vicious. “He’s done for.” The murder will surround him and tear him apart. It’s the way of crows, she’s observed, how they don’t accept anything not like them. It’s how Pip ended up with her in the first place. Her mind can’t help but go back to the morning she found them pecking at him, leaving him for dead only because she chased them off before they could finish the job.

  The gunslinger finally nods and follows her as though he’s come to terms with the loss. Maybe she should worry about his interest in the crow, or the odd way he acts sometimes. Surely he’s far more damaged than she’s let herself believe. But she needs him, now more than ever. Without Pip, she’s truly on her own.

  Helpless, hopeless in many ways, minus her best friend, Didi heads into the city, trailing a wildly obvious gunslinger in her wake. The residents of Trash City are just stirring, from the minor traffic she observes as she passes through a narrow gateway and into the city proper. Why it’s walled she has no idea, the thin and rickety barrier not even enough to stand up to a firm shove. Maybe those who live here need some kind of clear and present separation from the trash surrounding their city, though it’s that very garbage that makes their home in the first place.

  Didi keeps to the side of the street, head down, hoping no one notices the giant, silver cyborg walking silently along behind her. Well, not entirely silent. She’s acutely conscious of the whir of his servos as he walks, of the faint whoosh of air that he makes with his swinging arms, how his giant feet thud with the same volume of sound as her own boots. With every step she feels more and more exposed, as though any moment someone will leap out of a doorway and point and shout. “Gunslinger!”

  She’s clearly given the residents of Trash City far too much credit. When the first person they encounter—an older man pushing a floating sled with a definite tilt to the right—looks up and sees the cyborg, his eyes widen slightly before he continues on his way. Didi glances fearfully back over her shoulder to see if the old man is staring, but he’s already moved on, turning into an alley with his loaded cart.

  Three women converge on a front step the next block down, chattering away at each other in the rising morning heat. They don’t even look up from their gossip while Didi and the gunslinger stride past.

  It’s not until a pair of young workmen, their dark heads lowered, overalls stained and torn, push past her without a sound she breathes out a sigh of relief. Maybe she was worried for nothing. It seems the people of Trash City don’t want to notice.

  Though, that makes her sad, too. She’s with a gunslinger, a legend. And no one seems to care.

  “Might I ask,” the gunslinger says three blocks later, “if you have a plan, Didi, or are we going to wander the streets of this city hoping to stumble on your father?”

  She spins and plants her fists on her hips. They’ve entered a more populated area, though this still feels like a workaday part of town, with the average resident appearing run-down and rather pathetic in her estimation. Ramshackle complexes piled high out of reclaimed garbage seem to house a large number of people who are only now entering the street.

  “I’m thinking,” she says, grumbling in her tone. “You have a better idea?”

  “You are well aware of my opinion on our next course of action.” He sounds amused. Ruddy cyborg. He shouldn’t be so smug.

  “And I told you I want to find Dad first.” She turns around and hesitates. A few people are finally staring, a pair of kids whispering and pointing. Their dirty faces show hope, of all things, and delight. When an old lady raises her hand to the gunslinger and he waves back, it’s as if the entire street suddenly realizes he’s there.

  And they all stop to stare.

  Didi can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not. Before she can choose between emotions, the gunslinger grabs her by the arm and shoves her into the alley they’ve stopped beside. It’s dark here, the tall buildings overhead blocking all of the sunlight. She staggers against the wall of the nearest, catching herself with both hands before turning back to yell at him for being such a bully.

  Only to find the gunslinger is gone. No, not gone. Striding out into the center of the street while the crowd watches with mouths hanging open as Jackus and his two friends come to a halt twenty feet away.

  ***

  Chapter Twenty Two

  The gunslinger is in his element at last, all emotion and doubt and fears about Emma—Didi—gone from his malfunctioning mind. He knows these targets, recognizes them from the skimmer that attacked them on their way to the train. The same targets, Didi believes, who killed the old man, Putter, and kidnapped her father.

  He doesn’t have proof of their guilt, though their attack is enough for his gunslinger sensibilities to kick in and demand action. Action. His mandate.

  “Suspects,” he booms in his augmented voice. “Discard your weapons and prepare to be taken into custody.” His cyborg vision sharpens, studying the three as he speaks again. “Resistance to arrest will be met with lethal force.”

  The one in front—Jackus, according to Didi—grins while the gunslinger’s programming processes his stance, the tightening of his lips and the way his hand shifts to his side where a plasma gun sits. The gunslinger takes in all of this as the suspect speaks.

  “You have no authority here, relic,” he says, fingers twitching, unnoticed by the human eye but as obvious as a warning to the gunslinger.

  The crowd mutters. He ignores them, though civilians in the area do make his job harder. His focus spreads outward, sensors at three hundred and sixty degrees, a bubble of awareness no human can match feeding him constant information. Such as the fact the suspect’s two partners seem more inclined to run than to fight.

  “Relinquish your weapon,” the gunslinger booms. “And reveal the location of Tarvis Duke.”

  Jackus’s hand moves. Not fast enough. The gunslinger’s emotions feed him after all. Sheer delight.

  How had he never known this was fun?

  ***

  Didi hovers at the corner, finally shoving her way past two watching residents, hugging herself in fear as the gunslinger faces off with Jackus. It’s three to one, though even she can see the two bullies with her enemy seem nervous.

  “Relinquish your weapon,” the gunslinger’s voice echoes from the buildings while the people around her watch in rapt attention. “And reveal the location of Tarvis Duke.”

  Hope soars inside her when she finally understands what the gunslinger is doing. His job, bless his bole heart. He’s really doing it. She could hug him right now, though her mind warns her this kind of confrontation could draw more attention, the wrong kind. Conjunction attention. He’s an illegal gunslinger, after all.

  But the cyborg doesn’t seem concerned. Not even when Jackus laughs and draws his stolen weapon.

  Didi’s sorry she blinked. She saw Jackus’s hand move, knew what was coming, didn’t even have time to draw a breath to call a warning to the gunslinger. He didn’t need it. Jackus doesn’t even have his weapon out of its makeshift holster and the gunslinger’s is magically in his hand, pointed at the squatter. Jackus’s mouth gapes but his hand keeps moving, pulling the gun free, and raising it slightly. Her heart pounds, why doesn’t he fire? When the flash of plasma hits Jackus, Didi bounces on her toes, until she realizes it’s the weapon in the squatter’s hand that flies free, not his head.

  She really wanted it to be his head. Until the gunslinger aims at Jackus and speaks again in his commanding voice.

 
“Stand down,” he says. “And reveal the location of Tarvis Duke.”

  Of course. He’s thinking clearer than she is. They need Jackus. Though his two companions would do, in a pinch. Companions who are now, from all appearances, ready to run and leave Jackus hanging.

  She’s surprised when the first one—the skimmer’s driver who blew up her home—pulls his own weapon. The gunslinger is still faster and easily destroys his gun, too. That’s when the crowd cheers for the first time and it’s Didi’s turn to gape. The gunslinger spins on the second bully who drops his gun and makes a run for it. The cyborg peacekeeper lets him go, his companion taking off after him, leaving Jackus to shudder under the smoking attention of the business end of the gunslinger’s weapon.

  “I won’t ask again.” The gunslinger is harder to hear this time, the cheering crowd making it difficult. They’ve gained in volume, throwing garbage and bits of debris after the two running bullies. They must be well known in this part of town. “Where is Tarvis Duke?”

  This is it—her plan has worked. Didi can barely contain herself, gathers to run into the street and join the gunslinger, ready to cheer herself and maybe do some physical damage to Jackus before letting the cyborg kill him.

  She doesn’t get to celebrate, not when the jarring, heavy tread of approaching threat kills the cheers of the crowd. They all turn, en masse, as three towering mechcops enter the street, their tripod legs carrying them swiftly around the corner and into view.

  Didi’s seen their kind before, but only once, and only one at a time. Three of them makes a more powerful impression. They are easily ten feet tall at the tip of their curved, smooth bonnets, the balanced bulk of their mass hovering over the three giant legs ending in flat platforms of shining metal. She’d thought the gunslinger massive when she’d first seen him standing, but now, as the mechcops surround him, she realizes just how small he really is.