Lifel1k3 (Lifelike #1)(17)

“You remember where he worked?”

“Lem, in case you missed it, there’s a very angry mob outside our house carrying a cross my size. What does this have to do with anything?”

“Because that lifelike acted like he knew you. Like you’d forgotten him. And he called you by a different name, Evie. Someone in this game isn’t dealing straight.”

Eve knew Lem was right, but, true cert, impending murder just seemed more of a pressing issue right now. The Brotherhood mob was posse’ing around their three remaining Spartans, about a hundred meters from the house. The machina were armed with autoguns and a plasma cannon on each shoulder, and those things could liquefy steel. The house had only two auto-sentries on the roof, and against the bigbots’ armor, they weren’t going to be much help. As far as capital T went, Eve couldn’t remember being in much deeper. But she gritted her teeth, forced her fear down into her boots. She was a Domefighter, dammit. This was her home. She wasn’t giving it up without a kicking.

The lead Spartan’s cockpit cracked open, and a brief blast of choir music spilled across the Scrap. A barrel-chested figure in an embroidered red cassock vaulted down onto the trash, holding an assault rifle engraved with religious scripture. He wore mirrored goggles and had sideburns you could hang a truck off, a big greasepaint X daubed on his face. Eve knew him by reputation—a fellow who tagged himself the Iron Bishop.

“I am cometh not to bring peace, but a sword!” he bellowed.

“Amen!” roared the Brothers.

The Iron Bishop held out his hand, and a juve slapped an old microphone into his palm. With a flourish, the Bishop held the mic to his lips, his voice crackling through his Spartan’s public address system.

“In the name of the Lord! The Brotherhood demands that all genetic deviates housed within this domicile surrendereth themselves immediately for divine purification!”

Eve scowled, tried harder to swallow her growing dread. “Purification” basically meant getting nailed up outside the Brotherhood’s chapel in Los Diablos and left for the sun. The Brotherhood was always crowing about the evils of biomodification and cybernetics, and they had a major hate-on for genetic deviation. But they were big enough that the local law didn’t want to push the friendship. So if you happened to be born with a sixth finger or webbed toes or something a little more exotic, sorry, friendo, that was just life in the Scrap.

Cricket sat on Eve’s shoulder, peering at the feeds with mismatched eyes.

“Aren’t they hot in those cassocks?” he chirped.

“They make ’em out of Kevlar weave,” Eve murmured. “Bulletproof, see?”

“Got a bad feeling on this,” the bot said. “Right in my shiny metal man parts.”

“Keep telling you, you got no man parts, Crick,” Lemon sighed.

“Yeah,” said a tired voice. “I’m such a bastard.”

Eve turned with a surge of sweet relief, saw her grandfather sitting at the doorway in his electric wheelchair. But standing behind him …

“Um,” Lemon said. “Should he … be here?”

The lifelike.

It stood behind Grandpa in its high-tech flight suit, bloodstains on the fabric, Kaiser’s teeth marks on its throat. Old-sky blue eyes flitting from screen to screen.

“Grandpa, what the hell is that thing doing out here?” she demanded.

“Had a chat.” Grandpa wiped his lips with a bloodstained rag, eyes on the monitors. “Reached an understanding. So to speak.”

“Did you miss the part where this thing nearly choked Lemon to death?”

Grandpa tried to turn his cough into a scoff, smothered with his fist.

“You’re the one who … brought him inside, my little chickadee.”

“We thought it was dead!”

“I’m sorry, Mistress Lemon.” The lifelike’s voice was smooth as smoke. “My brain was damaged in the crash. I mistook you for a threat. Please accept my apologies.”

The lifelike’s pretty blue stare fell on the indomitable Miss Fresh. Its smile was dimpled, sugar sweet, about three microns short of perfect. Eve could see the girl’s insides slowly going mushy right before her eyes.

“Oh, you know.” Lemon’s face was a bright shade of pink. “It’s only a larynx.”

“Ohhh my god,” Eve began. “Lemon …”

“What?” she blinked.

“And you, Mistress Eve,” the lifelike said. “I’m sorry for any—”

“Oh, I’m Mistress Eve now?” she demanded. “What happened to Ana?”

“Again, the crash … my head injuries.” It glanced at Silas. “I’m afraid my brain trauma led me to mistake you for someone else. I apologize.”

“Brain trauma’s all better now?”

“Yes. Thank you, Mistress Eve.”

“But you’re still mistaking me for someone else?”

A blink. “I am?”

“Yeah.” Eve stepped closer, looked up into the lifelike’s eyes. “A true cert idiot.”

She stared into that fugazi blue. Searching for some hint of truth. Feeling only revulsion. Warning. Danger. This thing wasn’t human. It might look it, sound it, feel it. It might be as beautiful as all the stars in the sky. Problem was, the smog was usually too thick to see the stars anymore. And there was something wrong here. Something …