Lifel1k3 (Lifelike #1)(58)

She hefted him through the exit, the rest of the passengers content to stare from a nice, safe distance. Lemon was beside them, red-faced and gasping for breath, dragging Kaiser up the stairs one at a time. The poor blitzhund’s skull was bumping and clunking against every step.

“Sorry, Kais,” the girl panted. “I gotta train more in the off-season.”

The blitzhund wuffed softly, helping as best he could with his front paws. Eve heard the train grinding out of the station as they reached the upper level, spilling out onto the lopsided deck of what might have been an old oil tanker. A gabble of voices, flyers being thrust in her face, the stink of burning methane. Ezekiel coughed a spatter of red into his fist. She looked over her shoulder, expecting to see the Preacher flying up out of the stairwell any second. Her skin was slick with sweat. Hands sticky with Ezekiel’s blood.

“Come on!” she gasped.

She spied a pack of cab riders, huddled around a fritzing vid display. Their buggies were all shapes and sizes, rustbuckets every one, connected to old bicycles with methane engines to augment the driver’s legwork. She picked a random cab, bundled inside, listened to the drivers tussle over who got the fare. Finally, a young man with neat cornrows and tunneled earlobes slid onto the driver’s seat, flashing them a broad grin.

“Big ups, how y’all …” The driver’s smile disappeared, eyes widening at the sight of Ezekiel. “What the hells happened to you, boy?”

“Gibson Street Ministry,” she said. “Tanker District. Quickly.”

“Let’s see yer stiks, girl,” the driver said, suddenly serious. “Plastic first, yeah?”

Lemon fumbled in her pocket with shaking hands, shoved a credstik at the driver. Eve peered out through the buggy’s rear window, breathing hard. Through the crowd, she caught sight of a tall man. A black cowboy hat.

“There he is… .”

“Go! Go!” shouted Lemon, pounding on the driver’s seat.

“Easy on the does it, shorty,” the driver said, still scanning the stik.

The Preacher locked eyes with Eve. Started pushing his way through the crowd. Eve felt the Ana in her rising to the surface, that spoiled little rich girl, now imperious and commanding as she turned on the driver.

“Dammit, ride!” she screamed. “RIDE!”

The driver muttered beneath his breath, but finally satisfied the stik had credit, he started his methane motor, stomped his pedals. Tearing out onto the tanker’s deck, he rang his bell and hollered for folks to get out of the way. Eve watched through the rear window as they peeled off from the crowd, losing sight of the Preacher in the crush and exhaust fumes. She leaned back and sighed, pulse hammering beneath her skin. Lemon put her arms around her, hugged tight. Cricket nestled himself in her lap.

They bounced and rumbled over a short ramp, out onto a wide bridge between two different ships. Lemon made the mistake of looking down, past the tangle of footbridges and rollways connecting lower decks, all the way to the ground below. She turned a little paler, pushed herself back in the seat. The driver glanced in the cracked side mirror, yelling over the sputtering engine.

“Don’t be gettin’ no blood on my seats, dammit,” he warned.

Eve inspected Ezekiel’s wounds, fighting her rising fear. But the fist-sized holes the Preacher had blown in his back were definitely smaller. The wounds in his chest were closing. She’d already seen after the flex-wing crash that lifelikes had the ability to regenerate superficial damage pretty quickly, but Zeke’s arm hadn’t grown back yet. She guessed maybe the more serious the wound, the longer it took a lifelike to recover? And now Ezekiel seemed really hurt, wheezing and coughing red into his hands.

“Are you gonna be okay?” she breathed.

The lifelike nodded, let loose another hacking cough. Held up five bloody fingers.

Eve shook her head, checking the rear window again. They crossed over another swaying bridge, onto the deck of another freighter. Weaving in and out of stalls and clumps of people, wheeling around a great chimney stack, on into the bizarre metropolis. Lemon joined Eve at the rear window, Eve’s shaking hands pressed against the glass.

“You got a bounty hunter after you now, Riotgrrl?”

Eve chewed her lip. “Guess so.”

“He was almost as strong as Dimples,” Lem said. “Maybe just as fast.”

“He’s a cyber,” Eve said. “Reflex augs, military-grade prosthetic, probably a reinforced skeleton and synapse relays. Like I said: capital T.”

“Who hires a merc like that to snaffle a seventeen-year-old girl?” Lemon asked.

“Someone with deeeeeep pockets,” Cricket replied.

Eve shook her head. Too wired and tired to think. At this stage, finding one more trouble to add to her pile came nowhere close to surprising her. She was past asking how her day could get any worse. At least they seemed solid for now, cruising through the thudding Armada dark, on their way to whatever sanctuary Ezekiel’s friend could provide.

She just hoped it would be enough.



Ka-chunka-chunk.

Ka-chunka-chunk.

The blitzhund whimpered, looked up into its master’s eyes.

“How you doin’, Jojo?” Preacher said.

The cyborg tried to move and failed. A long, low whine spilled from its vox unit.