Lifel1k3 (Lifelike #1)(73)

“Wuff,” it said.

The explosion tore through the ministry, immolating everything it touched. Searing heat. Deafening noise. Black smoke billowed through the hollow space in the aftermath, the concussion echoing long after the blast had died.

The Preacher dragged himself to his feet. Spat his mouthful of tobacco onto the deck, scarlet and sticky brown. He pulled his hat back on, bloody spurs chinking as he limped through the burning mattresses. The metal floor was scorched where his blitzhund had detonated. Smoking scraps of fur were all that remained. The Preacher stalked to the figure crumpled against the wall. Her hair crisped and smoking. A bleeding, blackened ruin.

“Mmmf,” he said.

Hope grimaced, trying to struggle upward. Her body was riddled with shrapnel. Her legs had been blown off by the blast. And still, she tried to stand.

The Preacher placed a boot on her chest. Leaned hard.

“You shrug off bullets easy enough.” He glanced at the charred wreckage of her thighs. “But fire? Well, that seems to stitch you up just dandy. Some might call that ironic, darlin’, given the flames waitin’ for you when this life is over. Which is now, by the way.”

He drew a long knife from his boot.

“Now. Let’s see just how much bleedin’ you can do afore you’re done.”



Lemon sprinted along the Gibson’s deck, hand locked with Eve’s. Cricket was riding on Eve’s back, stuffed inside a satchel with a bunch of tools and spare parts. Kaiser ran out in front, barking urgently, knocking peeps out of the way. Lem heard the sounds of distant gunfire, the crowd thinning out as people ducked inside their shanties and tents. A faint whistle. Calls for the Freebooters.

“Where we goin’?” Lemon gasped.

“Just keep running!” Eve replied.

They bolted across a wobbling footbridge to a huge oil tanker, Lemon again making the mistake of looking down. The street below was an open-air market, everything from salvaged toys to rad-free water to strips of unidentified meat being haggled over in the dusty throng. Eve dragged Lemon through the crush, following the sound of Kaiser’s barking. The press, the heat, above all, the noise were almost overwhelming. And beneath it all, Lemon fancied she heard someone shouting.

“Ana!”

Cricket poked his bobblehead up from Eve’s satchel. “You hear that?”

Lem turned to look behind them, simply too short to see over the mob. She pulled free from Evie’s grip, crawled up a rusting ladder for a better view. Peering back the way they’d run, she spotted Ezekiel, forcing his way through the gaggle of automata and logika and humanity’s dregs. No sign of that bounty hunter in pursuit.

“Dimples!” she yelled, waving. “You okay?”

Ezekiel finally made it to the oil tanker as Lem hopped down onto the deck. Not even pausing to explain, the lifelike grabbed her hand with his prosthetic, Evie’s hand with his other, and just kept running. Dragging them onto a junction between the tanker’s forecastle and a tangled nest of shipping containers, consulting the lopsided signpost.

THE BRASS

SAMSARA

RED SHORE

THE BILGE

“Where’s Preacher?” Evie asked.

“With Hope. We need to go. Now.”

“… You just left her there with him?”

“Hope can handle herself. She told me to leave.” The lifelike’s eyes were wild as he scanned the signs, glancing over his shoulder every few moments into the milling crowd.

“Zeke, I—”

“Ana, I’m not losing you again! Now help me figure this maze out.”

“Where we goin’, Dimples?” Lemon asked.

“Wheelhouse. Hope said we can get transport there.”

“Can’t we just grab a pedal cab?” Eve asked.

“Um …” Lemon shoved her hands into her pockets. “We got no scratch.”

“You had a handful of credstiks just last night!” Cricket cried.

“I was lulling them into a false sense of security! I had four kings, I told you!”

“You mean you lost our entire bank gambling with kids?”

“‘Our’ bank? I don’t remember you cutting any pockets, you little fug.”

“I swear, the next time someone calls me little, I’m going to blow my—”

“All right, all right,” Ezekiel said. “Let’s just figure out how to get there on foot.”

Lemon squinted at the directions, tilting her head in case they made more sense that way.

WHEELHOUSE

“Erm …”

“They’re Roman numerals,” Evie said, pointing. “Look. Head five ships southeast, east nine ships, down one level. That’s the Wheelhouse.”

“Who the hells knows Roman numerals anymore, Riotgrrl? I mean, what use is that knowledge, in terms of your average postapocalyptic hellscape?”

“Quite a lot, apparently,” Cricket said.

Evie winked. “Mad for the old myths, me.”

“Let’s go,” Ezekiel said.

The quartet dashed off into the crowd, Kaiser hot on their heels.



Two ships over, Preacher stepped out onto the deck of the Gibson. Cleaning a long knife on a bloody rag.

“Quite a lot, apparently,” he mused.