Didi and the Gunslinger Read online

  “Didi.” Pip loves using her name, inflecting it with all kinds of emotions, trills, edges. She ignores him as she often does, internally drooling over the possibility of maybe, just maybe, finding out what makes a gunslinger, well, sling. She’s mastered small jobs, like Pip. But the idea of raising a full-sized humanoid… the power consumption alone is daunting. She’s seen schematics, but nothing in detail. Easier, oddly, to get the tech drawings for the mechcops who replaced the gunslingers, fully robotic and heartless. That’s the part she finds romantic, though if anyone ever said so to her she’d be the first to start a fistfight over the term. And yet, the idea that the human heart and brain still ran the soul of the gunslinger makes Didi lose herself in cyborg construction.

  Even Pip’s hissed, “Didi!” directly in her ear isn’t loud enough or registers important enough to catch her attention. Only when he shrieks at her, flapping his wings, does she slam to a halt.

  Too late, her greatest fear is realized. Lack of attention will be her downfall, she’s sure of it, just as it has been now. She freezes in place as she looks up and into the snarl of the man who owns this territory, stomping toward her with a purpose. And he doesn’t look happy.

  ***

  Chapter Five

  “Trespassing, little girl?” She holds still too long, held by her shock. He reaches her before she can back away. Ives Jackus’s fingers dig into her arm, clutching her like he owns her. “We’ve had this talk, hey?” He peers down at her through his bloodshot eyes, one wandering off to look in a different direction, the sheen of his oily skin making vomit rise to the back of her throat. Didi’s done her best to avoid Jackus, especially lately. There was a time the lean, greasy man in torn jeans and a filthy t-shirt simply yelled at her for crossing over onto his property. But, the way he looks at her, the slow and horrible way he licks his lips with a wet, smacking sound as he gazes her up and down is almost too much.

  Didi struggles against his grasp, long-fingered hands holding her elbow in a vice that grinds her bones together. Pip has fallen silent, clinging to her back, the cowardly thing.

  “Am not,” Didi says, pointing at the line of thick, blue glass her father placed on their borders with Jackus just a few weeks ago. Her boots are crossed it, aren’t they? Thank the dumpalls above and the trash below, she’s made it over the line. “You’re the trespasser.”

  Jackus grunts and shakes her a little, snuffles up a nice, deep wad of snot, spitting it over his shoulder. The gummy wad glistens in the faint light of a dumpall humming overhead.

  “Smart mouth,” he mutters, tugging at her. Trying to pull her over the line into his territory again. Didi’s fingers dig into the pocket of her jacket, searching for the trigger to the metal coils threaded into her clothing. A precaution against attack, but she never expected to have to use it against Jackus. Her mouth fills with saliva, swallowed convulsively as he stops pulling and smiles.

  It’s hideous, his smile, full of snaggled teeth where he has any left, bits of blackened edges showing even in the low light. She wishes she wasn’t wearing her goggles. This view is far too clear, a spinning analysis of the bacteria and content breakdown flashing on the inside of the lenses. And though the stench of Trash Heaven is a thing she’s grown long since accustomed, his breath rivals even the marshy pits to the west that spew their methane vileness into the atmosphere.

  “Look at you, Miss Divinity, growing up like you are.” His tongue is a thick slug of flesh slopping over his puffy lips. Something is wrong with his skin, bits of flaking dryness coming free from the sides of his nose, the reddened circles under his eyes giving them a burned out appearance. He takes a half step closer, pulling her against him. Her flesh creeps from where they make contact even as her fingers hover over the trigger that will likely shut down his heart and make her a murderer.

  So be it.

  “Let me go.” She’s proud of how steady her voice sounds, of Pip who pokes his head over her shoulder. “Release her at once, Jackus. How dare you manhandle Didi this way? Her father will hear of it.”

  Jackus ignores Pip, the hand tight around Didi’s elbow softening enough so his thumb can trace circles on her skin. She’s never felt anything so disgusting and the visceral reaction to his touch that races through her body makes her shudder so violently he starts and lets her go.

  Didi staggers back, wiping at her mouth as her stomach threatens to make a visit to the surface. Jackus makes a move for her, but she’s already turning, running for home. She should walk, she’s in her own territory and, were he to try anything she would call self-defense.

  “You come on back into my territory when you’re ready,” Jackus calls after her with a cackling laugh that ends with a wet cough. “I’ll show you what it means to grow up, little girl.”

  She needs to leave it alone. Didi feels the compulsion to ignore her good sense rising from the soles of her boots and up to her knees, spinning in place and reversing course before she can stop herself. Pip snaps in her ear, biting the soft flesh.

  “Didi!” His hissing makes her head hurt. “What are you doing?”

  She stomps to a halt at the edge of her territory, crossing her arms over her chest. Jackus stares at her, shocked from the gaping look on his face. It’s the first time she’s realized how young he is, maybe only a decade her senior. But life hasn’t been kind to Jackus, that much is written all over him.

  “Don’t you ever,” she snarls in his face, “touch me again.”

  Jackus steps back before standing his ground, fury flickering in his wandering eye. Good one, too. “We’ll see,” he says. “You just step over that line, missy. You’ll be fair game then, I reckon.” He laughs, a bark of a sound. “Or, maybe I won’t wait to catch you on my land. Tell your daddy I’ll be calling.”

  Dad would throw Jackus out on his behind. Or so Didi would like to think. More probably, he’d stutter in shock, offer the man a homebrew then find a way to make him leave, hopefully before it came to blows.

  Didi has no father illusions whatsoever. But, she’s not above using him as a weapon. “Don’t bother,” she shoots back. “He’d never approve of someone like you.”

  Jackus’s face twists, his body lunging for her. She dances back, finger on her trigger. He has no idea how close he’s come to death. It makes her feel powerful.

  He clearly doesn’t. “Stupid little bletch,” he snarls. Pauses and straightens, looks away. “Not worth my time, either of you. Crackpot and his nasty little mite.”

  It shouldn’t hurt, the way the others talk about Dad. But Didi can’t help her temper. He’s got no one else to defend him these days and she can’t stand the stigma.

  “Says you.” Didi hates the nasty, small look on Jackus’s ugly mug. She’ll show him. “Don’t see you building machines to help the galaxy.”

  “Didi.” Pip’s whisper is a warning. She’s tired of him using her name like that.

  Jackus’s feigned interest is a joke, a farce. Didi realizes she’s said too much, but it’s too late as the squatter smiles.

  “Just what is that daddy of yours up to these days?”

  Didi knows the rumors, has heard the others talk about her father. Calling him a crackpot out one side of their stupid mouths and a genius out of the other. She didn’t miss the way her father’s only friend, Putter, drooled over the new invention he was working on, though the old man had no idea what it could do. For that fact, Didi isn’t entirely sure either. But any outside interest is bad interest. She knows better. And she let Jackus bait her.

  “No business of yours,” Didi says, turning her back for good this time. She knows he’s watching her, feels his eyes on her as she leaves.

  “I’ll be calling, Didi,” he shouts after her. “You be ready, missy.”

  Didi circles a large pile of garbage, only then releasing her touch on the trigger. She takes a moment to flash her middle finger in the direction of the squatter, out of his line of sight, while Pip sighs in her ear.

  “You just ha
d to turn around.”

  Didi swats at him, irritation burning through her. She spins on one boot and marches for home through the familiar tracks of garbage. “Shut that beak,” she snaps, “or I’ll leave you to the corbies next time.”

  Pip’s silence doesn’t make her feel any better.

  ***

  Chapter Six

  Didi’s foul humor lasts all the way home. Pip’s quiet doesn’t hold out, though, and that’s part of the problem. Before they’re even in sight of the collection of bits and scraps that Didi’s Dad declared their house, the crow opens his beak.

  “You really need to tell Tarvis about the way Jackus spoke to you.” Didi snorts, knowing doing so will reap no benefit. “Look, the main house light is on. You’re in trouble, young lady.” She grinds her teeth together, not bothering to remind him he’s the reason she’s out so late. Besides, Dad knows better than to give her grief. She’s the only one who takes care of him. A bit of scowling and crossed arms and he’ll be backing off any kind of harangue he might try to deliver.

  The crow, on the other hand… simply doesn’t know when to shut his trap. Didi’s forehead aches from frowning as she stomps the last quarter mile for home, strongly considering letting Pip stay broken the next time he decides to fly off with those reprobate cousins of his.

  “You just be careful the next time you’re near Jackus’s territory,” Pip says, just as sure as if that’s something she hadn’t considered with her own brain, the silly creature. “And that means giving up on any idea you might have to go back to those gunslingers.”

  She’s smart enough to admit she’s irritated more by his understanding of her motives than the words he’s actually saying. No matter. Maybe she could deactivate his voice box, just for a little while.

  His chest feathers puff up, for the life of her as though he’s some pontificating wise man, cyborg eye brightening as he glares at her. “Don’t think I can’t hear your mind whirling, Didi.”

  She pushes through the front door, enough oil on the old entry to someone’s long-lost spacer swinging easily inward at her touch. Its original design called for a slider, but she likes the action of that push the best, the satisfying way its perfectly balanced weight moves with ease under her fingertips. Took her weeks to get the pulley system holding it in place just right, fiddling and finagling until the barest brush of her touch would move it. The latch catches as she swings it shut, locking with a faint click behind her while Pip sighs on her shoulder. The security grid she’s wired up hums to life, sealing them off from the outside world.

  “What am I going to do with you?”

  She’s already moving through the front entry to their home, lined with salvaged parts she has, as yet, to find a use for. Dad doesn’t complain about the junk inside—he’s as bad as she is when it comes to sorting through what’s there for his own use. She keeps it tidy, at least, the metal parts piled high to the ceiling of the back half of a cargo bay welded with plasfoam to the front twenty feet of a scrapped housing module. She likes the impressive way the ceiling of the bay curves upward over the front of the main house, like some kind of grand foyer she’s seen in vids. A thin veil of plas hums as she passes through it, popping out her mouth guard and nose filters on the other side. The house itself has its own protections from the stink and chemicals of the planet, enough her exposure to outside every morning gives her a start at the stench.

  The kitchen is empty, stove dark and cold. She lucked out on the heating node from a plasma generator, more than enough power to run the rusting old cook unit. She pulls open the front doors, both handles sliding in her grip, and frowns at the interior. Won’t take long to reheat a slab of the slush mole she caught and skinned two days ago. As long as Dad hadn’t finished it off for lunch.

  She can hear him puttering in his lab on the other side of the wall, the thin metal not much of a sound insulator. At least he hasn’t noticed she was gone, after all. While Didi is certain she can win out on any argument with Dad, she’d rather not have to. He’s so much more pliable when he’s happy.

  The cooler lid creaks when she opens it, stacks of mole steak piled on one side wrapped in protective plas, steam rising to the surface as hot air meets cold. Two steaks should do it and, though the memory of slaughtering the creature is still close to the surface—she hates killing anything, food needs or not—her mouth is already watering at the thought of grilled mole steak.

  Pip hops down on the counter, a slab of petrified wood someone dumped near the edge of the sludge creek, the perfect size and shape for the new center island she built to give her a place to prep food. Dad used to handle all this, but Didi finds it easier to take care of dinner. Especially if she actually wants to eat and not starve while his focus on work keeps him distracted.

  “Didi!” Dad’s voice drifts through the wall, tinny from the vibration of the metal between them. “That you?”

  “Home, Dad,” she calls back, the generator kicking in with a grunt of disagreement. She kicks it in irritation even as it jerks itself to life, the interior of the oven instantly hot. Flesh sizzles when her fingers slip, the tips touching the rack as she slides the pan with steaks inside. Didi hisses softly, sucking at the singed spots, slamming the oven door.

  “Dinner?” He sounds plaintive, boyish.

  “Coming.” Didi sighs, eyes Pip who clacks his beak at her. “We have time,” she says, scooping up the feathered cyborg and carrying him toward the other door in the kitchen. The narrow hall on the far side feels oppressive to her at times, mostly because she hasn’t made replacing the glowtubes in the ceiling a priority. Every time one goes out, she adds scavenging more to her list, but somehow it always ends up on the bottom. Her boots hum against the fake wood floor, made to replicate natural veining but always looking flat and dull to her. The wall panels are the same color, adding to the closing in feeling she gets. She pushes through the swinging door first on the right and into her own workshop.

  She found this particular bubble of awesome herself, about a year ago, and convinced Tortley from three territories over to trade her a transport of the unit for a fix of his favorite skimmer. Dad hated it when she showed off her skills to the other squatters, but the trade was worth it, in her estimation. It had to have been some kind of expensive sunroom or greenhouse in the past, a piece of a rich family’s place. She adored the pale green plasglass, unbreakable but breathable, containing its own filter system. Tubes of fleximinum formed the curved shell’s frame, carrying the power and water supply like its own ecosystem. The air inside is so fresh she takes a huge breath, loving how it makes her feel alive, even after the day she’s had. She’s acutely aware of how badly she smells as she does, grimacing while she crosses to the large, metal table in the center of the room and clamps the protesting Pip into the large vice protruding from her work surface.

  A quick glance at the pot of green on the far side of the room and she makes a decision to add some peas and lettuce to dinner. She has some spices she traded with Putter a few weeks ago for a handful of her peppers. More mouthwatering as she harvests her precious greens.

  “If you don’t mind,” Pip’s chill tone makes her laugh as she turns, the succulent morsels of freshness tucked into a small pouch she carries back to him. He’s on his side, awkwardly posed, unable to move as the magnetized clamp holds his metal body in place. “Honestly, Didi.”

  “A bit of patience, bird.” She strokes his feathers a moment. He mutters before closing his eyes, a soft purr emerging. “Your right leg is still a disaster.”

  He holds still as she retrieves some tools, finally able to straighten him out. It will take his organics time to cover the wound, but at least she’s managed to shut down his nerve centers so he doesn’t feel pain.

  Her task done, she releases him from the vice. Pip stands, shakes, examines his leg.

  “You’re welcome.” She tosses her black hair at him before scooping up her greens and heading for the kitchen. Pip wings after her, muttering to himself.


  Dad is bent over in half, staring into the open oven when she enters. He glances up, smiles at her past his round-rimmed glasses. “Smells great.”

  She rolls her eyes, slamming the door on him. “House is hot enough.”

  Dad grins, shrugs his narrow shoulders, pushing one long fingered hand through his brown hair. He’s so nondescript, so ordinary. But he’s hers. Didi tosses the bag of greens on the counter, has to slap his fingers from stealing a pea pod. Pip snags one, flies off with it, hooting laughter while Didi shakes her head at the both of them.

  “Good day?” Dad helps her retrieve plates, cutlery. She’s proud of the set he scrounged for her, all matching even though most are chipped and the metal is faintly rusting. Proper table settings, even old and tired ones, make her happy for some reason.

  “Good enough.” Her luck he doesn’t know the time, isn’t aware after all she’s been out so long. She licks juice from the greens from her fingers as she shreds them and piles them on the sides of the plates, sticking her tongue out at the crow who hops in agitation from leg to leg. Dad’s already fetching the steaks, a steaming, dripping slab appearing at the end of his fork. She taps the release on the stool tucked under the table and settles in, not even bothering to criticize when Dad begins shoveling food into his mouth.

  She’s doing the same thing.

  Pip flutters over and, though she swore she’d not share after the day he put her through, she divides up her portion and offers him bites between her own.

  Dad straightens from hunching over his plate, gaze settling on Pip’s damaged leg. “What happened?”

  Didi’s no tattle, though Dad is aware the silly corbie tends to take off from time to time. Pip, on the other hand, can’t keep his fool beak shut.

  “Your daughter,” the ratting bird says before she can stop him, “has been out beyond territory again, Tarvis.”