Didi and the Gunslinger Read online

  “It doesn’t matter.” Because she’s a practical girl. Has to be. She finishes wiping her nose on the corner of her jacket before fixing the crow with her determined stare. “I have a plan, Pip. And you’re going to go along with it or I’ll be leaving you here for good, with your power turned off. Hear me?”

  He swallows visibly. “You’d never do that, Didi.” Pip shifts from one foot to the other, his claws scratching her through her clothes. “Please, don’t say that.”

  Didi stands up, carrying him into the house. She has to be fast. Surely Jackus will come for her. She needs to get back to the gunslinger before long and fix him. She laughs, hysterical and cracking, ending in a warbling sob, at the thought of Ives Jackus trying to touch her with a gunslinger standing over her.

  “Didi.” Pip’s voice is kind, soft, the mutter underneath concerned. “What have you done?”

  She sets him down on the kitchen counter, slips free the chip, the fission generator that is now her only hope.

  Pip’s beak clacks together. “The gunslingers.”

  “Just need one,” she says.

  ***

  Chapter Twelve

  Didi crouches at the end of a trash tunnel, the net over one end wired for power. She’s had to sacrifice the small generator that keeps her greenhouse running to set up the lure, but it’ll be worth it in the end if she gets what she needs.

  It’s hard to sit here and not think about how little time she has, fighting waves of panic and terror, checking over her shoulder what feels like constantly as Pip floats overhead, keeping watch. She told him a little about Jackus, but only enough to make him alert, as if he needs much.

  “Where are we going now?” Pip flew after her when she left the house a short time ago. It was the hardest thing she’s ever done, her body resisting her desire to pass over the threshold and into the outside again. All she can think of is Jackus, that he’s waiting for her out there and she hasn’t had time to refresh her power cell on the threading in her clothing. What if he comes?

  She just didn’t have the time. The gunslinger is the priority.

  “We need a heart,” Didi told the crow, finally holding her breath and physically shoving her foot out the door. Once outside it was easier, less like being hunted, more like a constant, steady thread of fear following her like a thin trail of doom. “Don’t need human, but close to human will be best.” She knows exactly where to get one, too, though it will be a tough kill. And not as satisfying as ripping the still-beating heart from the chest of Ives Jackus.

  She’s only captured one tunnel bore before in her life, the giant cousin of the mini mole starting at ten times its size and not good eating, as it turns out. But the heart, that she remembers as close enough to hers, when she took a good look for educational purposes. Gross and exciting, all at once. She’ll never admit to anyone that combination of learning is her favorite.

  The generator hums at her feet, unshielded, chugging away gently, the electricity calling deep below through the spikes she’s driven into the trash. Tunnel bores can’t resist a good feed of juice, though the stupid creatures often rise up to attack unprotected homesteads if squatters aren’t careful and end up dead. Not the smartest of critters, nor with good instincts. Blind hunger drives them.

  Didi kind of knows how they feel at the moment.

  She feels the first rumble of movement beneath her and turns to the gennie, pumping up the power. The net across the end of the tunnel—a sure sign a bore’s been here before—electrifies the hull of an old homestead, amplifying the reach. Didi’s careful not to touch anything metal with her bare skin, gloves firmly in place. The charge might be dispersed enough it won’t hurt her permanently, but she needs her wits about her.

  When the bore breaks through, she holds her breath, stench of rising methane and other gasses pouring out of the hole, mixed with the musk of the pale, filthy creature broaching the surface like the vid of a whale in an ocean. She’s never seen water in such volume and privately thinks it’s someone’s imagination, so much liquid all in one place. Metal and plas crunch under the bore’s giant feet as it surfaces, wide paws six claws wide planting over a two foot circle, the blade-like crescents digging firmly into the trash.

  It shakes itself, debris flying from the crusted scales, pale and gray, coating its broad neck and shoulders, the muzzle a wriggling mess of tentacles, flushed red and squirming. Its lack of eyes is the most disturbing part, face smooth but for the writhing mouth of blood red wormies.

  Didi ups the charge again, waits for the bore to turn its massive, flat head on its thick neck. It spins with surprising agility, bulky body heaving the rest of the way out of the tunnel it’s made. Four more legs, increasing in size and musculature secure its balance, a stub of a tail thrashing twice before falling still. Its whip-like appendage was lost at some point, the scar over the end saving her life. For, had the tail been intact, Didi is fully aware when the stub settles, had its spiked length been present, she would have been directly in its path.

  It makes her shudder and focus. She can’t afford to be sloppy, to make mistakes. Her life—Dad’s life—depends on her doing what she needs to do. She waits for the bore to approach the net, whispering an apology to the huge creature as its tentacled nose brushes against the alum fibers she’s strung there, channeling every ounce of power into its tiny brain.

  Its mouth feelers wrap around the netting and suck on the electricity, the generator beside her groaning. Didi approaches from behind, slow and deliberate. She has to act fast, but with horrible patience. The creature’s eyes and ears might be an evolutionary rewrite, but its sense of vibration, she knows from experience, is excruciatingly powerful.

  She’s seen bores leap from the trash and take down dumpalls with a single strike. What she’s risking is foolhardy and she’d never attempt it without her special boots—enough to deflect the vibration her footfalls make—and desperation on her side.

  As she draws closer, she sees the old scars on its body, the way its right hind leg hangs oddly. It’s been through tough times itself, makes her pause and feel even worse for what she’s about to do. But Didi has a need, and the bore’s life is all that can fill it.

  Electricity feeds them. But, when she faced one last time, she found out by accident that they have one weakness, these giant, powerful and stupid creatures. One that makes it easy even for a tiny girl a fraction of its weight to bring it down.

  Water. Precious, life sustaining. Absent from the ecosystem of the bore. Didi fell into the sludge the last time, the bore sliding in after her. And the moment its hardened outer shell touched moisture, it dissolved.

  She hates to waste her precious reserve, but she has no choice. And, as she squeezes slowly past the shoulder of the bore and into the front of the tunnel, the net vibrating with power quickly slowing to a dull thrum, almost drained by the eager feeding of the creature, she stops to pat it gently on the top of the head.

  “Sorry about this,” she whispers. Its head tilts toward her, though it doesn’t stop feeding. “Good cause, promise.” Her hand shaking, she lifts the canister of precious fluid and pours it directly over the creature’s mouth and head.

  Hoping to reach the brain as fast as possible.

  The results of her attack, however, are far beyond her expectation. Didi remembers the last one falling forward and dissolving as it fell, almost in real time, while she screamed until it was gone. She is ready for it to simply cave in, disappear, collapse and leave her with what she needs.

  She is not, however, ready for the giant surge of energy that passes from the creature to the net to the generator and back again as the water closes the circuit the bore has created with its mouth, nor for the moment when, with a deep, aching whine, the bore’s head explodes outward in violent protest.

  Didi falls back, spluttering out bits of charred flesh, her mouth guard the only thing preventing her from swallowing bits of cooked bore. It collapses all at once, falling forward and squashing her with i
ts bulk against the side of the tunnel. Breathless from the pressure, Didi pants her way out from under the creature’s spreading death weight and pulls herself up to its back where she lays a moment, choking for air.

  A shadow passes over the end of the tunnel, wings flapping in the darkness. Didi looks back over her shoulder as Pip lands on the stump of the bore’s tail and cocks his head at her.

  “That was impressive.”

  She laughs. She can’t help herself.

  It’s a few moments before she musters the energy to drag herself to her feet. For a moment, she’s afraid she’s lost the laser pen she scavenged from her father’s lab, only to find it tucked into her boot for safe keeping. She really needs to remember when she does things like that, but it’s been a rough day all around and she decides slack needs some cutting.

  Bore, too. It’s a disgusting job, slicing through the creature’s back to get to its chest and the precious, organic matter inside. She only has so much time, knowing the heart’s cells will begin to degrade quickly if she’s not fast enough in preservation. Grim and determined, a goddess of gore and tech, Didi stands firmly over the shoulders of the fallen giant and cuts it open until the chest cavity is exposed.

  She kneels, leaning down into the body of the bore, breathing through her mouth the humid, copper stench of its insides. It’s still charged, little pitzes of electricity jumping and sparking at her as she gently severs the arteries and veins connecting the heart to the bore.

  A quick examination of it as she lifts it free and she’s satisfied. It pulses softly in her hand. The current the bore lives on and ingested keeps it viable longer than a human heart. She scrambles back over the carcass to the generator, hoping she calculated correctly. Grateful when she sees it’s still alive and has some power left.

  Just enough to preserve this heart inside a vacuum tube of plasglass, running a constant stream of power through it. She seals the jar, hears the air suck free, watches in sick fascination as the organic matter twitches before beating once, slowly. Holds her breath until it does so again thirty seconds later.

  It will have to do.

  She turns to find Pip picking at the exposed flesh of the bore’s chest, swallowing a few pieces. At least someone can eat it. He turns to her, red tongue licking the blood from the edges of his beak.

  “You have a heart,” he says, “and the chip. But, tell me, Didi Duke, what will you do if you succeed and your gunslinger turns on you?”

  She rests a moment, shoulder against the back hip of the bore, body weary and in desperate need of a cleansing.

  “You just leave that worry to me,” she says. Since she’s been mulling it since this whole idea woke in her anyway.

  She finally rises, taking the generator and tube with her, the small power unit swinging from one blood caked hand, the other holding the precious plasglass to her chest. She’s never been so tired, though she has a long way to go yet before she can rest.

  He saves her again, the silly bird, as she stumbles outside her yard. Feathers rustle, Pip’s claws digging in sharp, holding her back. She looks up at him, numb with weariness as his cyborg eye hums and whirls red.

  “We’ve got visitors,” he whispers.

  She looks back, in time to see Jackus exiting her house.

  ***

  Chapter Thirteen

  She is forced to crouch behind a pile of wobbling ship innards and watch, fear and frustration in equal measure tearing her apart, as two more men emerge from her home. They stand in a circle beside a reasonably new skimmer, the dark blue paint scuffed on the right back end, one of the thrusters dented and rusted around the edge. She has never seen the two men with Jackus before. Strangers are rare in her parts, enough she takes notice of their bulky physiques, the way their leather coats, hanging to the tips of their pointed boots, seem new and manufactured, probably purchased. That means money, as does the skimmer, and the city, more than likely.

  Her first fear Jackus is here for her, for revenge, fades as the three argue. He doesn’t seem to be in charge. Are they looking for her? Not likely. More than anything, as their argument goes on, too distant for her to make out details, she begins to believe this is about Dad.

  Surely these two thugs must work for the Underlord. But, if so, what are they after? They already have Dad’s invention, not to mention the man himself. What’s missing?

  Pip chitters in her ear but, for once, knows to hold his tongue, cyborg eye whirring softly in her ear as he observes next to her. It’s almost morning, the sun’s rays penetrating the edge of the horizon, lighting the dense atmosphere with a spread of color almost too brilliant to describe. She lowers her goggles as the light cuts through her visibility, casting the men in shadow. She needs details if she’s going to track them when she reaches the city.

  If only she could reach that skimmer, she could plant one of her beacons on it, the same one embedded in the crow’s chest, follow them that way. Or, she might be able to convince Pip to track them from the air. But, it’s a long flight to Trash City from here and she’s doubtful the small crow could keep up with a skimmer like that. Sure, they might be forced to go more slowly over the rough terrain, but they could still move at a good clip with their mags at full force, keeping them buoyant.

  Before she can make up her mind, Jackus tosses his hands and turns his back. The lead bully, his forehead swept low over his thick, black brows, hair receding well past the middle of his head, steps toward her house and raises his hand.

  There’s nothing she can do, no matter if she had backup or not. Didi’s reaction time is just too slow, the distance too great. The moment the man releases the canister in his hand, launching it into the front door of her home, he turns back to the skimmer and leaps inside, his companion with him. Jackus scrambles for the back seat, plas dome sliding into place. She gapes, mouth open, ducking at the last moment as instinct drives her to hide behind the trash.

  The ground beneath her thrums, shudders, the garbage hovering over her wavering, dropping dust and debris down on top of her while a blast of heat so powerful she feels it despite the shelter of the discards washes outward in a physical wave of fury. The sound follows it, a deep, thundering boom that rattles her teeth together and sends her to her side. Arms tented over her head for protection, she curls into a ball while Pip squawks his protest and launches himself into the air.

  When she’s finally able to sit up, wiping sweat and dust from her face, ears ringing from the blast, the crow returns, chittering sadly as he rubs his cheek against hers. It takes a moment before she’s able to hear what he’s saying, and it’s not good.

  “All gone,” he says, mournful and low. “All gone.”

  She knows what she’ll find when she looks, intellectually has no doubt her house has been obliterated. But, her heart isn’t ready, as much as her mind warns her to be practical about the whole thing.

  The skimmer has left, the two men and Jackus long vanished. And, save for a smoking hole in the ground, so is the only place she’s ever called home.

  All of her tools, her spare clothes, the bits and pieces of her life, gone, incinerated by the flare grenade. She’s only ever seen them in vids, part of her thinking they were just some wartime lie to scare the masses. She’s had an education today in what the world out there can be like and she’s not ashamed at last to admit she’s terrified.

  Doesn’t mean she’s a quitter. Just that, as she creeps forward onto the smoking, shattered wreckage around the crater of her house, she’s able to cry and not feel badly about it. That, she tells herself, will have to be progress.

  “Why?” Pip’s tone of voice mimics her heart hurt exactly. He lands on her arm as she raises it without thinking. “Why would they do this?”

  “I don’t know,” she says. “I surely don’t. But, more important, what was Jackus doing with two hires of the Underlord?” Pip stares at her, beak open. “Come on, snackerel,” she says. “Put two and two in their proper place. Who else but the Underlord’s folks?
”

  He exhales in a shudder. “You think they were looking for us?”

  Didi shakes her head, turns her back on home. Good thing she has the gunslinger’s chip in her bag, the heart still tucked against her side in the plas container. And a generator. Some tools, like the laser pen, though the charge is near done. Will have to be enough, won’t it?

  “No,” she says, walking away toward the path, “if it were me they were after, they’d have lain in wait, not blown home to sky heaven.”

  “Agreed,” Pip says, sounding more relieved than she thinks he should under the circumstances. As for Didi, she’s doing her best not to stop, fall to her knees, sob her heart out for the second time tonight. To put one boot in front of the other and keep herself moving. “So this is about Tarvis.”

  Her father’s name mentioned makes it all the worse. She swears she won’t turn around, that she needs to look ahead, but, at the last minute, as she rounds the corner that will lead her back to the gunslinger, Didi can’t help herself.

  She chokes on her tears, on the tightness in her throat, the burning in her eyes, forcing her to raise her goggles so she doesn’t fog them with the heat of her tears.

  Home. Done for. Maybe, like she’s done for, like Dad is.

  “Didi?” Pip nuzzles her with his beak. “We going?”

  She sighs, nods, shoulders slumping. “No more arguing?”

  He shrugs his feathered body. “Nowhere else to go,” he says. “Unless we head back to Putter.” Pip flaps his wings as Didi opens her mouth to protest. “Not saying we should. Only that it’s an option.”

  “No option.” Didi turns away from home, jaw set, lowering her goggles over her now-dry eyes. “We’ll just see what kind of damage a gunslinger can do.”

  It’s good to have Pip on her side for once, as he mutters his agreement. She just wishes he wouldn’t stare back over her shoulder like that, as if he could will home back to creation. Because it makes her want to turn around and do the same thing.