Didi and the Gunslinger Read online

  His chest plate dings softly as she slams it open, the metal ringing on metal while she digs around inside. The chip. It’s there, still there. Thankfully. Just slipped free, like when she found him. Didi bites her lower lip hard to keep from laughing hysterically—she really needs to learn to control her emotions in times like this—and hits the chip as hard as she can, driving it into place.

  Forgetting his reaction to waking last time wasn’t ideal. At least, until it’s done and blue light bursts from his body, eyes flaring even as Didi ducks to the ground, Pip in her arms.

  “Didi.” The gunslinger bends instantly, pulls her up. “Thank you.”

  She exhales in delighted terror. “Nice to see you’re all in one piece.” She hefts Pip back onto her shoulder.

  The gunslinger turns slowly, stares at the fallen mechcop. “Unlike someone we know.”

  Humor. He has a sense of humor. She can’t wrap her mind around that.

  “We have to go.” She tugs on his hand, but he’s already moving.

  “Agreed,” he says, lifting her into his arms and running for the gate. She stares over his silver shoulder, expecting to see pursuit and half hoping for a glimpse of Bo, though she’d never admit it out loud. But, nothing as they slip around the corner, the gunslinger continuing his run.

  She guides him from there, back to the machine shop. When he sets her down at last, she spins and hugs him, can’t help herself. When he hugs her back, heavy, metal arms gentle, it’s very, very hard not to cry.

  The mechcops will be hunting him, but she can’t leave just yet. Instead, she tells the gunslinger of her encounters, of Bo and Pip’s return while stalling. Just in case.

  Just in case Bo Rylan shows up again.

  “We will find your father and rescue him.” The gunslinger sounds even more determined, totally on her side, and Didi doesn’t know if she should laugh or cry. “I have seen the corruption of this place. I know now the machines that replaced my people aren’t worthy to carry the safety of your citizens in their care.” He sounds almost offended, furious if she can add that to his list of oddities. From everything she knows, gunslingers aren’t supposed to feel. “Injustice exists on Trash Heaven. And I will not tolerate it to continue. I might be decommissioned as a peacekeeper, but I will not stand for this, Didi.”

  She blinks, confused then concerned. “We’re not here to save the planet,” she says. “Just my dad.”

  “Indeed.” The gunslinger turns to the exit. “And, once that task is complete, I will deliver you to safety before returning to ensure those who have corrupted my duty pay for their crimes.”

  She’s created a monster. As long as he’s on her side.

  ***

  He will stop at some point and tell her their time is almost up. His need to save the people of this place supersedes everything, as does his drive to rescue Didi’s father. So much darkness here, down to the root of the Galactic Conjunction. The human handlers of the mechcops and their greed.

  “A gunslinger,” the man in the uniform had chortled over him, rubbing his dry, filthy hands together, bloodshot eyes glittering, the front of his G.C. coat spotted with food waste. He made the cyborg furious, an emotion that startles him with the depth of its hurt. “I know the perfect home for him. Collector on Martis will pay handsomely for a specimen this perfect.”

  Bought and sold like a trinket, instead of returning him to his rest…

  He has less than two hours before he self-destructs, the sun descending over this despicable place. If she can’t figure out how to stop it, he will take as many of his enemies with him as he can. Only if he can prevent the deaths of civilians at the same time. A conundrum he will contemplate until his end. For now, he will bring his best version of law to this lawless place.

  The little girl claps her hands in his mind. Daddy.

  The gunslinger will not let her down.

  ***

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Didi follows the gunslinger, pulls him back. Her quick search of the machine shop turned up the only disguise she can offer him. In the turning dark spinning toward morning, she observes her handiwork and shrugs. The long coat only comes to his knees, the hat floppy and barely shading the blue of his glowing eyes. But, at least he’s not so obvious and, if he only does up the top two buttons of his coat, his gun is easily reachable.

  “Does this make you happy, Didi?” He watches her with his servos whirring in the quiet early morning.

  She sighs and tosses her hands. “It’s the best we can do for now,” she says. “Pip, point the way.”

  The crow chitters a moment. “That direction, if my kind can be trusted.” His beak rises and falls deeper into the city. “According to the murder, we’re heading underground.” The crow shudders. “We need to find a bar, the Dark Bole. Some kind of entry point.”

  The gunslinger pauses, head up, first rays of sunlight catching his silver skin. “Allow me to uncover specifics.” He turns toward a power pole in the street and approaches it. Didi watches with fascination despite her need to hurry as his right index finger shifts, becoming a port end. He plugs into the city’s power system, blue glow of his body pulsing a moment before settling again. Didi holds her breath and her crow while the gunslinger’s body stiffens. He finally drops his hand, index finger returning to normal with a whir of servos.

  “I have the location,” he says. “They are drawing a lot of power, but are shielding beneath. It’s some kind of warren, deep beneath the trash.”

  Shielding beneath would be to protect from boles. That has to be the place. She grins up at him, slugging his plastanium arm before shaking off the sting. “Good job, G.S. Let’s go.”

  He pauses, looking down at her, shoulders shifting under the coat that strains over his massive bulk. “Before we do,” he says, “there is something you must know.”

  She’s not going to like what he has to say, she’s sure of it. Because this has just been that kind of day.

  “When you removed my chip,” he says, “in the cargo bay, you activated my self-destruct.” She did what? She’s not sure if she should hit him or cry. Wants to do both as he goes on. “A twenty-four hour clock began at that time.”

  But, it’s been so much longer than that, hasn’t it? Since she first met the gunslinger? Trash Heaven runs on a twenty hour clock… Her mind whirls and rewinds. And realizes no, it hasn’t. She glances at the sky, at the early morning, realizing with the time difference added on, it’s been maybe one of her days gone past.

  “Twenty-two, to be precise,” he says in a soft, apologetic voice, “and three minutes, fifteen seconds.”

  How kind of him to give her such insight. “How do I shut it off?”

  He shakes his head. “I am uncertain. My system should have rebooted and canceled the self-destruct when you activated me fully. But, it is still counting down.”

  “You waited until now to tell me this?” He’s fried in the brain for certain.

  “I had hoped to find a solution before now.”

  Blikey.

  “We don’t have time for this.” She needs to get to Dad. But, if she does only to have the wretched gunslinger blow them all to the moon… “You should have told me.” She grasps his hand, pulls him aside. If he had told her in the machine room, maybe. Could they spare the time to go back there? Did she dare not? She pulls open his chest panel, has a look inside. But, she’s lost without schematics and knows it. No amount of tools or time will help her figure this out without information.

  Her heart heaves a little, stiffens before softening and beating again, the inside of her nose burning and tingling with tears she forces down. This can’t be happening now, of all times. Not when she’s this close to saving Dad.

  “I have only one suggestion,” the gunslinger says. “Pull the main chip and allow my reserve power to run out. If I force myself to bypass my shutdown, all of my reserves will be used up quickly. While they will keep me sustained in sleep mode, if I remain functional, I’m certain I wil
l die within a matter of an hour or so.”

  “It’s not enough time to rescue Dad,” she says.

  “Perhaps.” The gunslinger’s head hangs. “My second option is the best. When the time comes, I simply rise to the outer atmosphere and allow the self-destruct to complete its course.”

  She grasps at the front of his coat, desperation so vast she’s swallowed by it a moment. “You can’t!”

  His hands settle gently on hers. “I may have no choice.” He looks up, across the street. “Our destination awaits. And your father. If you see an opportunity to disarm me, if we are within the time frame I listed, please, remove the chip. But, no matter the end result, I will ensure your safety for as long as I can, Didi.”

  She won’t cry over a stubborn hunk of plastanium and his misplaced sense of heroics. Not when he’s marching onward, leaving her no choice but to follow.

  ***

  He already knows how this will end, but he feels badly for her. His death is inevitable. Time to ensure her life lasts far longer than his.

  ***

  Didi trots after the gunslinger, around a corner, catching sight of the sign over the bar they’ve been searching for. She pauses half a step, opens her mouth to speak. To offer a plan of attack, a suggestion as to their entry point. Maybe they should circle around the back, slip inside unnoticed. Get a look at the place, see if they can find the entrance to the Underlord’s lair.

  Only to skip a step and have to run to keep up as the gunslinger’s stride widens. Before she can do or say a thing to stop him, he’s pulling free his weapon and pointing it at the front door of the Dark Bole, plasma blast opening the way.

  “That’s one way to do it,” Didi grumbles under her breath, secretly excited, a thrill running through her veins at the fact they are finally doing something. Dad is close, she can feel it.

  She makes it to the hole the gunslinger made in the front of the bar in time to watch flashes pepper the darkness within, waving at the smoke emerging as she coughs on the acrid flavor. She steps over the fallen body of a groaning man, boots crunching on shattered plas and twisted bits of fried metal as she follows her gunslinger—yes, he’s hers, she decides with delight—into the dark interior and to the long, low bar at the back of the room.

  Someone squeals and runs, but the gunslinger lets the woman go, stomping without pausing to the bar. He strides behind it, disappearing a moment as he bends at the waist, rising with a squirming, shrieking man in his grasp. The skinny, greasy young man sobs in terror, shaking so violently in the gunslinger’s grip he swings like a trash rat held by the scruff of its neck.

  “You will tell me,” he says in his booming voice, “where I can find the Underlord.”

  The bartender squeaks out a few words Didi can’t decipher. Can only assume the same goes for the gunslinger as he casually shakes his prisoner, making the man sway further, a dark, wet stain spreading between his pant legs.

  “Repeat the information.” He really is good at this. Didi tries her hardest not to giggle.

  “The elevator shaft!” This time she hears the man speak clearly, and is able to follow his pointing finger—no matter how hard it trembles—turning to observe the side exit door of the bar.

  “Excellent response.” The gunslinger sets the man on his feet. “You may leave, citizen.”

  The bartender gapes up at the silver cyborg a heartbeat before running on shaking legs past Didi and out the door. It’s not until he reaches the street he starts screaming.

  Let him scream. The Underlord knows they are coming by now. And though that crosses Didi’s mind, she has to trust the gunslinger knows what he’s doing.

  Though, as she approaches the door on the hulking cyborg’s silver heels, a tiny part of her quivers in worry his mind’s damage is leading her into more trouble than either of them can handle.

  He tears open the door, pulling it free of its hinges in a whining cry of breaking metal. A single-panel elevator door waits on the other side. The gunslinger’s massive finger mashes the button, lighting it up. Didi clutches both hands to her mouth as they wait to the sound of groaning and moaning behind them for such a pedestrian occurrence as the arrival of the elevator.

  The soft ding of its appearance is too much for her. Didi snorts.

  “Really,” Pip snaps in her ear. “You must take this seriously. He’s leading us into the bowels of the planet and you’re hysterical.”

  She shushes the bird, following the gunslinger into the narrow, wobbling chamber. When the doors hiss shut behind them, doubt returns, swallowing her giddiness, but the gunslinger’s calm helps keep her stable.

  “Do you have a plan when we get to the bottom?” She certainly doesn’t. This is the epitome of her entire experience so far—leap without thinking.

  The gunslinger’s weapon emerges, the whine of it powering up making her shiver.

  “Shoot anything that moves,” he says.

  That’s supposed to console her? And yet, she’s grinning again. She remembers the kick of that weapon, the way it felt when it went off and took out the mechcop.

  Her hope and trust held firmly in her chest like a shield, Didi exhales and tries to feel calm. Seconds tick by, the gunslinger’s weapon pointed, unwavering and humming, at the door.

  She doesn’t think she can handle the pressure as her ears pop and her heart feels like it’s going to explode outward like the mechcop’s turret.

  Didi is ready for anything—an army, an explosion of gunfire, her own death. She thinks so, anyway. Until the elevator comes to a jerking halt and the bell dings. Until the door swishes open and her wide, startled eyes take in who waits for her at the bottom.

  “Didi.” She lurches forward and into Dad’s arms, and bursts into tears.

  ***

  The only thing that saved Tarvis Duke from death was the look on his face. The gunslinger knows that look, feels it in himself. It’s how he remembers looking at the girl who laughs in his mind and calls him Daddy.

  Emma. He looked at Emma that way.

  What is this sharp, agonizing pang ripping through his chest at the sight of Didi leaping into her father’s arms? Where does this pain come from, this need to pull her back and shelter her in his own embrace, safe from harm? His body freezes as he processes emotions he’s not built to handle, feeling his damaged mind struggle, burn out in places, his systems fighting for control while the girl hugs her father and weeps.

  His finger stiffens on the trigger as Emma laughs in his mind, the sky behind her going dark, her giggling joy turning to terror and screams. She falls away from him as he reaches for her, desperate need cutting him into tiny pieces of utter hurt.

  The gunslinger is well aware there are others gathering at the door, that he’s given up his advantage to these emotions, but he can’t shake free, not while the girl he loved and the girl he guards mesh together in the heat of his rising feelings.

  Instead, he lowers his weapon, holstering it in the face of the multitude pointed in his direction. He’s failed her when she needed him most. And so, he will bide his time, as long as they don’t harm Didi. While his clock tick-tick-ticks down closer to zero.

  ***

  Chapter Thirty

  Didi hears Pip whispering in her ear, warning her they aren’t alone, but she refuses to open her eyes, simply hugging her father and enjoying their reunion. There will be time to feel fear and desperation and anguish later. Right now, she holds onto him as if he is all there is in the world.

  Because he is.

  When Tarvis finally pushes her back and away from him, his eyes brim with tears. He looks terrible, his already gaunt face dirty in places, his eyes sunken with lack of rest. His disheveled person isn’t so out of the ordinary, but he seems a bit more roughed up than normal.

  How dare they? Fury bursts in her and she pushes him sideways, facing the group that’s come to greet her.

  The gunslinger stands next to her, weapon holstered. He’s picked a fine time to stand down. She can’t show
weakness, not when she has Dad so close. If the cyborg is going to fail her now, she’ll have to do this herself.

  A face she doesn’t expect emerges from the crowd, the old woman pushing people out of her way until she is in the front of the crowd. Didi’s stomach clenches as Murta looks the gunslinger up and down as though he’s of no notice before fixing her nasty gaze on Didi.

  “You,” Didi says. “You’re the Underlord.”

  Murta cackles. “Clever girl. I knew the moment I met you I’d be having to deal with you eventually. Better now than when you’re older and too clever for your own good.” She gestures at the gunslinger. “Disarm that thing.”

  Her men hesitate while the cyborg remains silent and still. Didi feels pride well in her chest, but it only lasts a moment. Until Jackus emerges from the group and approaches the gunslinger, holding up his own weapon, taking the gunslinger’s.

  Who does nothing to stop him. Blikey.

  Jackus hands the gun to Murta who turns it on Didi. “The chip, if you please.”

  “What chip?” Didi knows her response is the wrong one the moment she speaks up. The old woman’s face tightens, finger on the trigger. For the first time, the gunslinger responds, stepping in front of Didi, blocking her from harm. Even as the Underlord tsks her impatience, Didi shoves against him before stepping around him again and elbowing him in anger.

  She rubs at her aching joint, glaring up at him before turning on Murta. “You killed Putter.”

  Her father sways beside her, hand rising to his mouth. So, he didn’t know the man he trusted was dead. Murta shrugs. “I knew he had the chip. But the old fool wouldn’t give it up.” She gestures at Tarvis with the weapon. “I didn’t have the kind of leverage I have now. The chip or your father dies.”